The Burden of a Dark Templar
by Troll-Theorist
Summary: A tribe of Nerazim settled on an ice planet, hoping to build a society where they could live by their own rules. After two years of peace, they are faced with extremely violent terran invaders and the imminent death of their prelate. Their fate would soon lie in the hands of the prelate's son. *StarCraft belongs to Blizzard Entertainment.*
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Wreath for the Fallen**

Eight terran marines in red CMC armored suits walked over the white, snowy terrain, their C-14 rifles at the ready for shooting the enemy. Their heavy suits' helmets and visors protected their heads from the biting cold that planet Cylas offered no matter where they'd go.

Ahead of them there was a forest of trees so tall that they seemed to be connecting the ground to the sky. The trees had green, spiky leaves covering their branches entirely, and in some spots on those branches they had copper, scaly cones.

The marines were almost in the shade of the forest, but one of them spotted some shimmers in the shadows. He lifted his gun and shot in the direction of the unusual sight, only to cause the light-refracting entities to duck and run toward his squad.

As the marines opened fire, three of them received surprise blows from something swift and green that kept appearing out of nowhere and damaged their armors. The sounds were similar to that of swords cutting through the wind and clashing with the metal of the armored suits.

The shimmers moved fluidly, avoiding most of the bullets. It was almost like dealing with ghosts – psionically-gifted terran soldiers trained to go on stealth missions and sometimes call down nuclear missiles. But these marines knew that ghosts were nowhere near as powerful as these adversaries that ambushed them. These creatures – which bled dark purple blood when a few lucky shots landed – could remain cloaked indefinitely.

"We're getting decapitated here!" one of the marines said as he watched his teammates drop like flies. In response to his shouting, a scan was done by one of their satellites above the area, allowing the marines to see their enemies through the displays on their visors.

They saw five alien humanoids with gray, scaly skins, heads crested toward their backs, black, braid-like nerve cords – which were tied like hair buns that had silver caps at their ends – green glowing eyes, and silver armor that defended their chests, shoulders, arms, legs, and their two-toed feet. They wore purple bandannas to hide the lower portions of their faces, and on their backs they had capes of the same color. These aliens, identified as protoss, appeared semitransparent through the marines' visors for the short moment during which they were revealed by the scan.

"Shoot 'em!" one of the marines said. His four remaining teammates targeted the protoss and opened fire.

Two of the protoss were killed, but two of the surviving ones took down three marines while the third protoss fought the marine who gave the order to shoot. A few shots and blade swings later, all that remained of the fighters was one marine and one protoss.

"You scaly motherfuckers are always in our way," the marine said, glaring at his enemy.

The protoss faded out of his sight, not wanting to grace the terran with any words.

"Hide in the shadows like you always do, dark templar. Won't face your enemy in a fair fi–" The marine went quiet as a scythe of green light split his helmet – as well as his head – vertically in half.

The female protoss who wielded the scythe pulled the weapon out of the helmet and let the terran's body drop to the ground. "Sorry about that," she said. Her eyes glowed bright green, and her skin was dark gray. The lower portion of her face was covered by a black bandanna. A pair of fleshy extensions dangled from her head as if they were the antennae of an insect. The armor she wore on her chest, shoulders, arms, and knees was mostly silver while the pair of long, winglike capes on her back and the cloths that went from the front and back of her waist to the ground were completely black. Unlike the other protoss, she walked over the snow barefoot, and had five shoulder-length nerve cords ending in silver caps.

The remaining male protoss revealed himself to her, squinting. "Why did you slay the terran that should have died by my blade?"

She made the scythe disintegrate. "I understand that you wish to avenge your fallen comrades, Makatai, but I bear grave news."

Makatai calmed down and looked at her with his eyes fully open.

"Prelate Alys'tor has been severely wounded in battle. He was teleported back to our settlement, but his life seems to be hanging by a thread. You should go see him."

"Oh, Adun, keep him among us so that I can get to him," Makatai said. He took one last look at the snow that was stained by the blood of the slain terrans and his fallen comrades, then he ran toward the trees.

* * *

Deep in the forest, in a palace made of silver with green windows, many protoss gathered to watch over the wounded prelate, who lay in a dark purple bed. Stained rags were wrapped around his head, left arm, and his abdomen.

"Perhaps we could put him inside an annihilator," a female protoss said.

An old male protoss looked at the prelate, who could barely keep his eyes open due to the pain. "I think the prelate is far too wounded to survive the procedure. I am afraid his time with us has almost come to an end."

The female protoss glared at him. "Do not say such things!"

"You know that it is true," the old protoss told her.

Her glare turned into a frown. "What will we do without a leader? How can we organize our army if he dies at a time like this?"

The prelate raised his right hand and said, "There … is still hope. Where … is my … my son?"

"I feel his presence nearby," the old protoss said.

Makatai blinked into the room. "Father!" He went next to the bed and grabbed Alys'tor's right hand.

"My son … listen carefully. I want you … to lead our people … once I am gone."

"You can still be saved!" Makatai said. He turned around to look at the other protoss in the room. "Why has not any of you put him in an annihilator yet?"

The prelate struggled to deliver his telepathic message to his son. "Makatai … It would be … wasted time … and resources."

Makatai looked at his father, and his green eyes started to emanate streams of their light. "Nothing would be wasted. If you leave us, we will have no leader."

"You ..." Alys'tor said while pointing his index finger's sharp claw at him, "will be their leader."

"But, Father, I am in no way prepared for this! I have failed to keep my brethren from dying. I was the sole survivor of that battle."

"We all … learn from our mistakes."

"Mistakes like these could cost us our tribe! Please, Father, choose someone else!"

"Son … I believe that you are the best choice I could make. My dark archons shall serve you." Alys'tor looked at the female protoss who wore black cloths. "Lady in Black, where are the dark archons? Are they still anchored to our realm?"

The Lady in Black raised her antennae while her eyes glowed brighter green. After a moment of silence, she said, "I sense them. They're not far from here."

"Go … and bring them. Bring … everyone. They must … They must hear … what I have to say … about the future of our tribe."

She bowed. "As you command, Prelate." After turning around, she hovered above the ground and took her leave.

* * *

A man dressed in a white skinsuit with a backpack on ran over the snow while screaming. His hair was red, ruffled, and short, with a long fringe hanging over his forehead. His eyes were brown, and his buckteeth stuck out of his mouth, covering his lower lip.

Behind him, a dark, bulky protoss figure with no legs chased him, levitating while emanating a fiery red aura similar to the being's eyes. It was three times taller than the terran, and held something in its right hand's claws. "Cease this foolishness!" the entity said in a distorted, echoing voice.

"Uoooh!" the man yelled, trying his best to evade the strange protoss' left claw that kept reaching out to grab him.

Eventually the chaser caught up to him and put its left hand on his back, pushing him forward until he face-planted into the snow.

The man raised his head so he could see again. "Gaah!" He tried to reach for the thing in the protoss' right hand, but was denied access to it.

"Must have energy!" the dark being said before it tore a blue light out of the terran with its left hand. This caused the terran to shriek.

A protoss identical to the other one arrived, and it used a beam of its red flames to drag a red vehicle that was about 70 meters long and 50 meters tall, more suited for air than ground due to its shape and its wings pointed toward its back. The being tore a similar blue light out of the vehicle. "Must feed!"

"What has this vessel done to deserve this?" The aircraft's voice sounded hoarse, monotone, and for some reason it put the accent on the wrong syllables.

The terran laughed while smirking at the vessel.

That caused the machine's artificial intelligence to say, "This vessel should not have trusted the UED scum."

The man stuck out his tongue and blew raspberries at the machine, but had more of his energy drained by the protoss as punishment. He yelped in pain.

"There you are!" the Lady in Black said as she allowed her feet to sink into the cold snow after she had stopped levitating.

Looking at her, the terran tried to speak. "Layla i Bak!"

She was looking at the other two protoss, but then gave him some attention. "Garf, why did you and Raven wander off at a time like this?"

Garf's eyes looked to his right as he was trying to invent an excuse. "Weaah ..."

She scowled at him, then looked at the red aircraft. "Raven, what mischief have you and Garf been up to?"

"This vessel tried to bury the hatchet and help the ghost find edible roots under the snow, but the ghost tried to abandon this vessel in a frozen lake. Now this vessel just wants to bury the ghost."

"You can try to kill each other later," she said. "We have serious matters to attend to. Prelate Alys'tor is about to pass away, and he said that he wants everyone to be there to hear his last speech. That includes you two, even though you're terrans."

Garf's eyes were wide open, as was his mouth. "Aister die?!"

"Oh. That is most unfortunate," Raven said.

"We must hurry!" the lady said as she turned to look at the forest in the distance. "The prelate doesn't have much time left."

* * *

Makatai continued to hold his father's hand. The prelate was slowly slipping away from the mortal realm, his eyes having lost much of their once bright green shine.

The two fiery protoss dragged Raven and Garf into the palace, then let them go and went to levitate at the side of Alys'tor's bed. One of the dark archons said, "We are here, wise one."

"Nandu-Xnora … Khartal-Solash … I … pass leadership … to my son. Please … guide him … with your wisdom … for the short time while you are still of this realm."

"But the pain … We yearn to die in battle!"

"I understand, Nandu-Xnora. You dark archons … suffer and constantly crave energy. But the enemy is too powerful, and your knowledge is too valuable to be lost."

"Our thoughts are in chaos!" Khartal-Solash said, putting their hands over their head.

"Meditation … can help you focus."

"Why cannot we unleash our mind control powers on the enemy?" Nandu-Xnora asked. "The war would be over today if we do."

The Lady in Black glared at the dark archon after hearing that.

"To enslave a being's mind … is to give it a fate worse than death," the prelate said. "I abhor that act as much as the xel'naga do. If someone wants ... to be our enemy, respect their choice. If they join our cause … then it should be by their choice as well. That is why … I have spared those two." He pointed at Garf and Raven. "If the enemy can be reasoned with … then the conflict can be ended without any more bloodshed."

Garf stood there, among the protoss, staring with a sad expression at the dying prelate.

Makatai shook his head. "Father, these terrans we fight are not like them. They will attack the second they see us. We cannot get a word in before they launch burning pieces of metal at us at high speeds."

"There … must be a way, Makatai. Remember … everyone has a reason … for what they do." After he drew one last breath, Prelate Alys'tor's body went limp and then turned into dust, leaving behind only his armor and purple cloths.

"Father! Father, do not go! I need you! _We_ need you." But there was nobody there, on the bed, to hear Makatai.

"You must stay strong, Makatai," the Lady in Black said. "You have an army to lead."

"But I … I do not know what to do. I am a failure when it comes to battles. My poor planning has led to the death of four of my brethren."

"You will learn, young one," she said. "I shall train you. The dark archons will impart their wisdom to you. These people need a leader, and you are the one everyone is looking up to."

Somewhere in the background, Garf was wiping his tears away with his right arm's sleeve. He grabbed the thing from the dark archon's right hand and took it back. The white, helmet-like object was his ghost mask, which had three green goggles – a large one for his right eye, and two small ones for his left one. It also had a breathing filter in the mouth area, and two hoses coming from the left and right side of its cheeks.

"This vessel does not understand why Alys'tor spared you, UED scum," Raven said.

"Hoy! Shad ya yap, t'n can!" Garf said while giving the machine a nasty look. Then he put his mask on and left the hall.

A female protoss with lilac skin and a blue bandanna stood among ten protoss children who wore nothing but cloths over their light-gray bodies. Her nerve cords were kept tied in a bun, and her eyes glowed green. She had silver, upward curved pauldrons to match the armor on her chest, pelvic area, arms, and feet. Each of her pauldrons had an extension with its inner portion having blue glowing lights. These extensions stood upright near her head, as if they were horns growing out of her shoulders. From under each pauldron, a strip of dark blue cloth dangled, reaching to her knees. From her waist area, she had two other cloths that covered her front and rear, reaching slightly above the level of her feet. A cape to match those cloths covered her back, all the way to the ground.

Makatai walked up to her and looked her in the eyes while his were still flooded with light that spilled out. "Khar, please … deal with the funeral rites for my father. I would help, and I should, but … I must spend some time alone to decide whether I shall lead or pick someone else to lead."

"It will be done," she said. "Your father was a great leader, and has showed my family kindness by allowing us to join this tribe. It is the least I can do to repay him."

"You better make up your mind soon, young warrior," the Lady in Black said to Makatai. "It is only a matter of time until those terrans find our settlement."

"I shall try," Makatai said before walking away, his eyes still spilling green light.

* * *

The Lady in Black walked around the settlement, her feet sinking into the snow each step. She saw the centurions use their blue blades to attack training dummies that were made of metal piled up to remotely resemble terran marines. The centurions could turn blue for a brief period and pass through the dummies while charging. Then they hit the dummies with attacks that would normally stun creatures.

Near them there was a group of dark templar who faded out of sight and attacked training dummies, destroying them with one swift swing of their green warp blades.

A bit further, there was a nexus – a building shaped like a square pyramid. Sixteen probes – autonomous machines – gathered minerals from a patch, while other six probes collected vespene gas from two assimilators. The new probe model had only one green glowing eye in front, a circular part of the same glow on its left side and another on its right. Under the probe, there was a green jet keeping it hovering above the ground. On the probe's back there was a crest sticking out. The machine's armor was made entirely out of silver metal.

As the Lady in Black continued her stroll, she ended up in an area where the stalkers – protoss minds merged with cybernetics – honed their skills. They shot at flying silver discs and jumped at training dummies to tear them with their bodies' four legs and two small claws. The stalkers had a vaguely arachnid shape, with their hunched backs almost twice as tall as a marine in CMC armor. Most of the stalkers' bodies were covered in silver, save for the three spots around their backs, and the blue, glowing parts of their legs' "knees", along with their claws' tops. Their shields on the right side of their bodies also had seven blue spots – six toward the top, and one at the middle. Their heads were covered in silver plating, had green glowing eyes, and the lower portions of their faces were hidden under a blue bandanna.

Everything seemed in order there, so the Lady in Black decided to go inspect the rest of the army. But before she could leave, a stalker walked up to her. "Yes?" she said to him.

The stalker bowed. "Good day, my lady!"

"Good day to you too."

"My name is Gorgas. I am your biggest fan."

"Well, that's nice. I am sorry, but I cannot stay for a chat right now." She turned to leave, but the stalker appeared right in front of her, in the blink of an eye.

"Please! I must have your number!" the stalker said while holding his claws together.

The Lady in Black shook her head to decline his request. "I remain devoted to my partner, even if there are high chances I might be a widow now."

The stalker just stood there, one eye wider than the other. "Huh?"

She walked away, leaving him there with his confusion.

* * *

After checking on the fleet of corsairs, oracles, and void rays whose pilots trained to fly in various formations, the Lady in Black went to the Temple of Young, a triangular pyramid. Inside, she found seven of the protoss children and four machines with transparent lids. In each machine, there was a protoss baby. She looked around, hoping to see the protoss she came for. "Can any of you kids tell me where Khar went?"

The children looked up at the tall lady with their wide green eyes. The eldest of them, a boy, said, "Khar went to the east of our settlement to get materials for a wreath."

"Thank you," the Lady in Black said before leaving.

* * *

At the edge of the settlement, the Lady in Black saw Khar and three protoss children climb one of the tall trees. They were picking the branches from the middle and collecting them.

"I want to pick the cone!" a protoss girl said while reaching out for one of the tree's copper, scaly seed holders.

"You can pick it, Kaika, but please be careful so you don't fall," Khar said. "You younglings are our tribe's future."

"I will catch anyone who falls," the Lady in Black said.

"What brings you here, Lady?" Khar asked.

"I am inspecting our forces, learning of their strengths and weaknesses so that I may give the best advice to our future prelate."

"Then why are you looking for me? I am not a warrior. My job is to take care of our warriors' younglings."

"Your services are important for our tribe, but make no mistake: if you are not prepared to defend these younglings from the dangers that may fall upon them, you shall regret not training in the ways of a signifier."

"Just because my parents became signifiers does not mean that I wish to be one too."

"Time will be the judge of that," the Lady in Black said while scowling. "What is the purpose of this wreath you are making?"

After taking the cone from Kaika, Khar said, "Have you not heard about the wreath for the fallen?"

"Please forgive my ignorance. This tribe has not seen death from the moment I have joined until recently, when these terrans arrived."

"We make one of these to represent how much we care about those we look up to, or those we love, after their departure. It is like a promise that, once our time in the mortal realm is up, we will join them."

The Lady in Black seemed saddened by something. She looked toward the blue sky that was beginning to darken – a sign that night was almost there. "Khar … could you ... show me how to make one of those wreaths?"

"Of course I can," Khar said, slowly making her way down the tree along with the three children. Once she reached the bottom, she walked up to the Lady in Black and looked into her eyes. "You have lost someone close to you, I believe?"

"I may have. I am too far away to know for sure. It pains me to talk about this, so just … teach me how to make one, please."

"Do not worry. I will teach you. But you will have to acquire the materials for it: one cone and twelve branches from the middle of one of these trees."

"That will be easy. You go on your way; I will catch up with you as soon as I am done. I will also check on the rest of our forces as I return."

* * *

At sunset, all of the tribe members, except for the babies and Matakai, gathered at Alys'tor's funeral. Most were on one knee, with their heads bowed in respect as the remains of the prelate were put on a silver tray and lowered into a hole in the ground by the pair of dark archons with the help of telekinesis. The dark archons put the soil and snow back on top of the grave, and then stood aside, looking at the silver blade monument at the head of it.

Khar walked up to the monument. On it, she put the final piece – the wreath for the fallen.

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Thunder in the Forest**

The sun peeked from the horizon, shining its golden light over a mountain, atop which a pile of snow rested.

Out of thin air, a green flash of light appeared next to the pile, and then turned into the Lady in Black. "Rise and shine, Prelate! Your warriors are awaiting your orders!"

Makatai raised his head, causing some of the snow to fall off it. He scowled and let out a grumbled sigh.

"That fluffy white coat does not suit you," she said, smiling through her eyes.

He shook the snow off the rest of his body. "Is there nobody else suitable for the position of prelate?"

"You are the strongest member of this tribe, and you are the former prelate's son. Is it any wonder that everyone expects you to pick up the mantle?"

Makatai pointed his claw at her. " _You_ are the strongest member of our tribe! Why are you not assuming leadership?"

"I have joined this tribe two years ago. It would not be fair for me to take over it when others have been here for far longer. However, if you become prelate, I shall use my powers to assist you in any way that I can."

Makatai looked at the snow that engulfed his feet. "So be it. I shall take my father's place as prelate. May Adun have mercy on me."

* * *

All protoss, excluding the very young ones, gathered in the palace of the prelate. Garf joined the crowd on his own while Raven had to be dragged inside the palace by a dark archon again.

The Lady in Black stepped on the raised platform in the hall and was followed by the two dark archons. They waited there for almost a minute until Makatai joined them. He was dressed in a new suit of armor, because an old Nerazim tradition their tribe had kept stated that anyone who becomes prelate should be offered attire fit for their beliefs and personality.

The suit was similar to his old one, but the piece on his right forearm was decorated with three green gems shaped like rhombuses, and each of his pauldrons had a spike curved toward his head, which had a silver helmet covering its top.

His people looked at him with anticipation. He was to become either the one who would lead them to victory, or the one who would doom them all.

Hearing their thoughts put much pressure on the soon-to-be prelate, but in spite of his fears, he stepped in front of the crowd and raised his right hand, producing a green flaming warp blade from the hole of his forearm's armor. "I, Makatai, son of Alys'tor, accept the title of prelate, along with all of the responsibilities that come with it. It is my sworn duty to guide our warriors, as well as to make all of the important decisions regarding our tribe."

His followers' eyes were filled with hope, and those protoss who had warp blades ignited them to cheer. They had a new leader and a chance at defeating the terrans who threatened to destroy their settlement.

Makatai continued. "The two terrans whom my father allowed into the tribe shall remain members as long as they do not do anything that goes against the tribe's well-being. Our army will focus on building a massive fleet consisting primarily of void rays. For that to happen with no interruptions, we must send four probes and five stalkers near the terrans' base and proceed to contain it with photon cannons."

"All due respect, Prelate," Raven said, "this vessel doubts that you know about the terran tanks. Should the terrans resort to building a few of those vehicles, the photon cannons will be turned to dust."

"We need to buy time. If we let them expand, they will simply walk right in and destroy our settlement. Our only chance is to contain them now and focus on our void ray production before it is too late. Should they bring in the tanks, we will be ready for them. Probes, stalkers, go and contain the terrans! May Adun be with you!"

"I hope you know what you are doing, Prelate," the Lady in Black said.

* * *

The four probes looked around to make sure no marines could spot them, then levitated toward the terran base. One of them opened up a warp portal, and then the other three probes joined in, creating their own portals. Within seconds, in place of the portals stood four pylons with large, green crystals surrounded by silver, ring-shaped frames with clawlike extensions. It was time for the probes to warp in eight photon cannons. The flower-shaped defensive structures were brought onto the field within less than a minute and were ready to use their orb-shaped levitating cannons to shoot at anything that traveled on the ground or flew above the area.

The five stalkers supervised the probes' work, making sure no terran would interfere with the containment operation.

Within less than half an hour, the terran base ended up being surrounded by hundreds of photon cannons that were backed up by multiple pylons. The probes and the stalkers left the area, hoping that the terrans would be kept there for some time.

* * *

Garf, not wearing his ghost mask since the air wasn't too cold, hid behind a conifer bush and looked through his rifle's scope. He stalked a creature that was white, fuzzy, with two short ears, brown whiskers, two large black eyes, four stubby legs, and a short, flat tail. It reminded him of the seals from Earth, but he had never seen a seal with such a dense fur coat. Upon further observation, he saw that the creature was accompanied by its baby.

The mother alien seal, completely oblivious to the hunter's presence, rolled over and allowed her pup to drink some milk from one of her six black nipples.

It was the perfect time to pull the trigger, and yet Garf hesitated. His finger was one jerk away from causing the rifle to deliver the killing shot, but seeing those fluffy alien seals so vulnerable made him ponder if he really had it in him to put an end to their lives.

The alien seals continued to be blissfully unaware of the threat.

Garf knew he needed to eat something soon, or else he would end up losing a lot of muscle mass, and he didn't have much fat on him either. He was glad that his hostile environment suit kept him warm, because the planet he was on only knew one season: winter. What he wasn't glad about was that food was very difficult to come by. Most of the local flora did not produce anything edible for humans. The plants with roots that he could eat were difficult to find under the snow, and berries only grew from parasitic plants that could be found at the top of the tallest trees.

The alien seal licked the head of her pup.

"Auuuugh!" Garf screamed while lowering his rifle. His preys heard him and ran away surprisingly fast on their stubby legs, leaving the ghost to cry because of his failure.

"You're a pathetic hunter," the Lady in Black said as she appeared out of nowhere behind him. "Here." She threw him a green vine that had twenty red berries on it.

Still having tears in his eyes, Garf caught the vine and said, "Thenk yau!"

She scowled at him. "If you hadn't attempted to destroy Raven, he would be helping you find food right now."

He scowled back at her. "Raivn es enemay! Ee ca go to 'ell!"

"You don't _have_ to be enemies! You can just be part of this tribe. Neither of you seem to have any pleasant memories regarding your former factions, so just forget them and be like us. We stand united, and together we are strong."

"Nuoooooo!" Garf said. "Raivns an ghosts en … ene … enem ... enemay! 'E taid ta kill m'."

"He was only following orders," she said. "Now he answers to Makatai. And if Makatai forbids him to attack you, he will not attack you."

Garf crossed his arms at his chest and looked away. "Hmpf!"

"Good luck finding food by yourself then." With that, the Lady in Black blinked away.

* * *

Makatai saw the stalkers and the drones return from their mission. "Did you successfully contain the enemy?"

"Yes, we have left no gaps through which they could to escape," a stalker told him.

"Excellent," Makatai said. "Now we can begin to gather the ships and then drive these wretched creatures off our planet."

A female protoss with violet skin and a green robe approached him. "Prelate!"

"Yes, Shaska?"

"I flew my oracle to scout the edges of the forest and I saw some terran marines," she said. "They must have left their base before the containment operation took place."

"We must slay them before they build a second base! Shaska, gather the oracles and lead them toward the place where you have seen the enemy! Do not let those terrans escape!"

Shaska nodded. "It will be done."

* * *

Khar and five of the children were out on a walk through the forest. The spiky leaves of the towering trees were still covered by snow, but the sun was slowly melting it away, causing small drops of water to rain down on the protoss.

"Stay close to me, children," Khar said. "You do not want to get lost in the forest while those terrans are still out there."

"Those terrans are no match for us!" one of the three boys said. "They cannot even levitate!"

One of the two girls added, "Indeed! Their technology is worse than ours was 500 years ago!"

Khar told them, "Keep in mind that we were uplifted. The terrans were left to grow by themselves. Also, in spite of their outdated technology, they have managed to successfully stand against our kind _and_ the zerg. So do not underestimate them!"

The boy chuckled. "They are still weaker than us overall. Their strongest members could barely win a fight against our weakest people."

Khar put her right arm in front of him. When he stopped walking, so did the other children. There was a strange mist ahead, which made Khar suspect there was something dangerous there. As the mist approached, she could hear loud rumbles and see some trees fall. "We must return to the settlement. Those might be the terrans." She turned around to see three marines with guns pointed at her.

"Looks like we failed to kill it before it laid eggs," a marine said.

Khar looked at the children behind her and told them, "Run! Let me deal with them!"

The children scattered through the forest while Khar glared at the terrans and prepared a ball of green light in her right hand.

* * *

Five oracle ships flew along one edge of the forest, then went to check on the photon cannons near the terran base. The terrans were still surrounded, not wanting to risk their lives in exchange for destroying the cannons. There was no sign of any terran machinery capable of heavy ranged attacks.

Three small terran ships called vikings hovered above the base – a large ship that could pass for a carrier. The vikings had spotted the oracles, but could not fly over the cannons without getting blasted to bits.

A bulky, bipedal mech with cannons for arms towered next to two smaller ones. The oracles identified the smaller mechs as goliaths, known from the era of the Brood War. The larger one was something they had never seen before, so they had no idea what it could do. Since it wasn't being used for breaking through the photon cannons, they assumed it wasn't as strong as a tank.

Speaking of tanks, there were none in sight. Perhaps the terrans were busy building them, unless they had a better plan – which could spell trouble for the protoss.

* * *

Garf wandered the forest, still looking for something to hunt. He saw a creature similar to a white owl with a round body, its head looking as if it were part of its torso. This was his chance. He looked through the scope of his rifle and aimed for the owl thing's head. But … it was so fluffy … Why did everything on this planet have to be fluffy? Why did his hands have to shake like that every time he aimed at a creature?

The rumble from the forest reached the owl thing's unseen ears, making the creature fly away with its large, feathered wings.

"Uooofff!" Garf said, lowering his rifle. He sighed. It seemed like there would be no food for him that night.

Trees started to collapse in the distance, distracting him. There was a thick mist where the trees had fallen, and something dark could be seen heading his way. It was shaped like a vehicle, and it sounded like one, but there was also a strange whistling sound and … music?

* * *

Blaring the song _Terran 7 Action_ on the speakers of his cyclone, a terran man in his late twenties grinned, driving while shooting down trees with the help of his vehicle's tornado blaster missiles. "The Dominion doesn't get that AI just can't hold a candle to human skills when it comes to driving this baby," he said, patting the black plastic dashboard while his left hand held the wheel.

On the video feed from the cyclone's camera there was movement detected. When the driver touched the screen and slid his index finger and thumb over it, the image was zoomed in, showing the protoss children. "So that's what protoss toddlers look like!" At that moment he had what he thought was a fun idea. "I wonder if they're fast enough to escape the wrath of the cyclone, he he heh!"

The two protoss children heard the ruckus and saw the silhouette of the cyclone that brought down trees. They wanted to run away from the vehicle, but they were too tired to climb the mountain behind them. They couldn't head east, because the marines were there fighting with Khar. They could head west, but they would then get out of the forest and become too easy to spot by other terrans that could be out there.

"If only we could turn invisible like our parents can," the girl protoss said.

"Perhaps we should hide under the snow," the boy told her.

"The terran will crush us under his machine if we do that!"

The boy scowled at her. "Then what do you propose we do?"

She looked at the blue sky. "Hope that Adun sends someone to save us."

The cyclone headed straight for the children, knocking trees down as if they were bowling pins. It had a launcher on its left side and another on its right, through which it rapidly fired the small missiles that dropped into the snow. On the left side of the vehicle's front, a red light shone brightly, making the cyclone look like a monster to the children.

Just when the missiles were falling near the little protoss, the cyclone stopped advancing, in spite of its four all-terrain wheels still trying to carry it forward.

"Is this thing broken?" the driver asked, looking at the schematic of his cyclone on its screen. "Systems seem fine. Why isn't it moving?"

Whatever it was, it refused to let the cyclone get closer to the children.

"This is ridiculous," the driver said while face-palming and letting his hand slide down his face. He took a pair of thick, black gloves out of the dashboard's glove compartment and equipped his hands with them. "I better stop talking to myself and go check what's going on out there."

The wheels stopped while the cyclone's front lowered itself to allow the terran to get out. The protoss could see his angry looking blue eyes and the scratch mark scar on his right cheek. On the top of his head he had goggles with two big red lenses and four smaller ones below them. "Hey, you little lizard people! What did you do to my cyclone?"

The children quivered while their backs stuck to the cold mountain rocks behind them.

The driver landed on the snow and started punching his left palm with his right fist. "You don't look so tough. I'll just get rid of you with my bare hands. It'll make the boys' job easier when there'll be fewer 'toss to fight." He didn't even manage to take a step toward them. An invisible arm wrapped itself around his neck and pulled him back. "What the …?"

The children watched, their green eyes wide open. An unseen creature was holding the vehicle's driver and carrying him toward the cyclone's front.

The driver struggled. "Let me go, you … What are you anyway? Dark templar?"

"Huooooo!" the invisible entity said.

The driver kicked his captor in the knee, hoping to free himself from the headlock. His foot met with a piece of metal. "You got knee pads. Sneaky bastard!"

Due to having used up all of his psionic energy, Garf could no longer stay invisible. "Uh ..."

"Oh," the driver said, his tone reeking of disappointment when he turned his head and saw the green-goggled white mask. "You're just one of those UED ghosts." He stepped to the side and kicked Garf in the groin.

The ghost yelped as he let the driver go. Then he fell on the ground, holding his hands between his legs in an attempt to stop the intense pain.

The driver towered above Garf. "You ghosts and your fancy suits … Can sneak around and mess with people, but you got nothing to guard your family jewels." He went back into the seat of the cyclone. "When you'll get caught in the storm of missiles, you'll end up looking like Swiss cheese! Heheh!"

A thunderstorm broke out above the cyclone, sending green lightning strikes down. This caused the driver to abandon his vehicle and flee the scene before he'd get fried. "That's not the storm I was expecting!"

Garf was still on the ground, whimpering while the storm raged on.

"Get out of there!" Khar said, standing behind some bushes.

The protoss children looked at her and then at the ghost that had defended them earlier. They couldn't leave him behind.

Khar ran to help them get the ghost out of there before her psionic storm would become too strong to bear. The cyclone had already been partially damaged, and the lightning started to strike toward the man on the ground. She lifted him by herself while allowing the children to run to safety. Looking at the chaotic lightning above, she realized that there wouldn't be enough time to save herself and the terran. Yet the storm was her fault, so leaving him behind would not be an honorable thing to do – especially not after witnessing him save the children. "I should have trained. The storm would not have gotten out of control if I had learned to use it properly. Please, forgive me."

Garf looked at her and then at the lightning bolts that crackled as they spread like the branches of barren trees. All he could say was, "Yipe!"

A green dome formed above Garf and Khar, protecting them from the storm. The dome then bent its edges upward and turned into a sphere that wrapped the lightning inside itself, shrinking until it became the size of a basketball. The ball then descended and landed in the right palm of the Lady in Black.

Khar knew she was in for some scolding, so she bowed her head and let the terran stand by himself.

After absorbing the orb with her palm, the Lady in Black said, "Do you know how much damage storms such as that one can cause?"

"I am sorry," Khar said.

The Lady in Black pointed at her. "You are _foolish_. Many Nerazim died because they had unleashed psionic storms aided by the power of the void while they had no idea how to control them. These storms can easily kill anything in their path. The few beings that escape out of their wrath can end up crippled, often for life. You either try to master it, or never use it again. You could have destroyed the entire forest with it!"

"I … I shall train. But if these terrans keep resorting to such disgusting tactics, they deserve to face the lightning!"

"Make sure you'll use it only as a last resort. Even when controlled, a psionic storm will destroy everything it touches."

Khar nodded to her. "So I shall do." Then she looked at the younglings. "Children, we must return to the Temple of Young." She turned to see the ghost, who took off his mask and put it back into his backpack. "Terran?"

Garf looked at her with his wide brown eyes. "Huhf?"

"Just call him Garf," the Lady in Black said. "He can't even remember his real name."

"Thank you for saving the little ones, Garf," Khar said. "That was very brave of you."

"Aw, it nufn'!" the ghost said, grinning while scratching the back of his head with his left hand.

"I have to get back to the temple. You are welcome to drop by at any time." With that, Khar took the younglings by their hands and left.

Garf continued to smile and watch her walk away. He forgot all about the pain and the fact that he was supposed to be hunting.

The Lady in Black noticed his strange behavior, but considered she had more important matters to take care of, so she levitated above the snow and left as well.

* * *

The three marines from the forest limped on the way back to their base.

"Those lizards surrounded our base with cannons!" one of them said, looking at the containment area.

"Damn," another marine said. "Now we can't get our wounds healed."

The third marine sat on the snow and held his left knee with his hands, in spite of the CMC armor covering it. "My leg hurts!"

"Move over, crybabies!" the cyclone driver said as he joined them. "Let a pro show you how to whine! They fucked up my cyclone and sent a thunderstorm on my ass! Also, one of those UED ghosts was there, and he tried to strangle me! I would have died if it weren't for my combat skills!"

The first marine snorted a laugh. "Combat skills ..."

"You probably just cheap-shot him, like you usually do to us in fights," the second marine said.

"Your leg doesn't even hurt, Frank! You got no right to whine!" the third marine said to the cyclone driver while still clutching his injured knee.

Frank put his hands on his hips and scowled at the marines. "Look at yourselves! You want to preach to me about fairness in fights? I'm not the one in need of a medic here."

"Again, you got no right to whine!"

"Oh, shut up!" the driver said. "Let's go hide in another part of the forest and contact the boss before those oracles find us."

* * *

Makatai watched the group of ten void rays fly above the forest. They looked like silver, elongated flower buds with blue gem ornaments on the petals and its tip. _Such beauty for something so dangerous ..._ He was sure that the strike would be successful. The enemy had nowhere to go, and the few terrans that slipped through were just a few marines; easy to get rid of.

Meanwhile, Gorgas the stalker tiptoed around the settlement, searching for someone. He saw the Lady in Black and then hid behind a house. When he peeked, he noticed that she was no longer there. _Where could she have gone to?_

The Lady in Black was behind him. "Looking for someone?"

"Oh!" he said, retracting his shaking claws under his head. "Yes, indeed I was. I was looking for you. The memory of your beauty keeps me awake at night. I came here to get fresh memories of you."

"I advise you to stop," she said, glaring at him.

"Lady, you will find no one as devoted to you as I. I am so enamored with you that I have plastered pictures of you by the hundreds on some walls of my house."

"Really?" she asked, her eyes glowing brightly. "Speaking of your house … I think you should go check if you've left the stove on."

Gorgas gave her a blank stare. "What?" He looked at his house, which could easily be seen from where he stood. There was smoke coming out of his bedroom window. "How?! I do not even _own_ a stove! Adun, bring the rain to my house!" He ran to get the probes to put out the fire.

If the Lady in Black had a mouth, she would have smirked behind her bandanna at that moment.

* * *

The sun was beginning to set, and the void ray fleet was prepared to fly toward the terran base to attack it. The corsairs were fully charged so that they could cast their disruption webs over the enemy to stop their attacks. All stalkers and dark templar were ready to blink about and bring swift death to any terrans that they might encounter, should the strike fail. The 100 centurions were first to be sent to scout, because Makatai did not want to lose fleet members or stronger warriors to an ambush.

Garf returned with nothing but his rifle in his hands. He would go without supper, since he did not want to wander the forest during the night. For a moment he considered apologizing to Raven, but it was difficult for him to get over what that crazy machine tried to do to him. There would be no apologies! He would walk past the gigantic trash can and not say a word.

Raven rested under the roof of a giant, silver gazebo. He watched Makatai give instructions to his army on what buildings to prioritize defending.

"The terrans must not reach the Forbidden Temple," Makatai said while showing the map on a holographic projector. The temple seemed to be under ground, with the entrance being situated behind the Temple of Young. "If they gain access to its contents, they could easily turn the tide in their favor."

Raven wished that he could help the protoss out, but it was impossible. The terrans who built him did not give him access to the controls of his body, except to the areas responsible for the production and deployment of auto-turrets, point-defense drones, interference matrix missiles, and seeker missiles. For some reason, the guy who piloted him from the distance lost control over him ever since Raven fell down the mountain along with _that filthy United Earth Directorate ghost_ , who would do anything to get rid of him, even when the AI called for a truce.

Speak of the devil, Garf was passing by Raven's gazebo just then. He tried to ignore the colossal drone.

"Auto-turret," Raven said as he spat out the structure that aimed its cannon at the ghost.

Garf's jaw dropped while he cloaked all but his exposed face. Even if he could fully cloak, it would be of no use, because Raven could see him and tell his position to the turret anyway.

"Auto-turret. Auto-turret. Auto-turret."

Three more turrets were produced, so Garf hid behind a silver building and decloaked, panting while looking around to see if there was a different path he could take to return to what had become his home in the village.

"Eat turret, you monster!" Raven said while the two front-facing, triangular arrays of red lights at the base of his wings increased their glow.

Garf peeked from behind the building and stuck his tongue out, then retreated fast, barely avoiding the shot from the turret.

"Cease this pointless waste of energy!" Makatai shouted just before the turrets crumbled. "If the enemy breaks into our settlement, we will need you to help us defend."

Raven lowered his fins. "But, prelate ..."

Garf protested in unintelligible words.

Makatai stomped the snow with his left foot. "Enough of this! As soon as the moons will rise, we shall strike the terrans' base. Be prepared for the worst."

The ghost looked at the raven, who he thought looked back at him – it was difficult to tell, since all that moved was the parabolic dish on the vessel's tail.

* * *

The night finally came and the twin red moons were high in the sky. The void rays flew with their gems' lights off, making sure that no one could easily spot them.

The centurions led the way, approaching the photon cannons that continued to keep the terrans contained.

"Nothing unusual here," a centurion said to Makatai over the psi link device hidden within his helmet. "The terrans seem to be asleep. Call the void rays so that this place gets cleansed as soon as possible. The centurion troops will be returning home now."

Another centurion stopped his brother in arms from leaving. "Wait! What is that hissing noise?"

They looked at the sky and saw a large, black, almost cylindrical object that had a flame trail behind it. After ascending, the object turned around and began to fall. A red blinking dot was on a pylon close to the centurions' side.

"It is a nuclear launch!" a dozen centurions said while scattering to get out of the blast radius.

The void rays saw the infamous orange mushroom cloud and fled back to the settlement, followed by the remaining 90 centurions – some of whom were severely wounded and were being carried by their comrades.

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: An Infiltrator Among Us**

"Yeah! Go back to your mama ship!" a marine shouted while he and nineteen other marines fired their rifles at three retreating void rays.

The twin moons bathed the battlefield in red light as four goliaths shot at both air and ground protoss, tanking the damage while the crew of SCV mechs repaired the walkers from behind. Ground shaking announced that the biggest terran mech was on its way to the battlefield.

"Thor is here!" the giant mech's pilot said while showing off the cannons of the walker's arms. He had shoulder-length, light-brown hair, a red bandana, a mustache that connected to his mutton chops beard, and a pair of shades that hid his eyes. "Finally! Some action! I was getting covered in spider webs!" The way he spoke made his colleagues think that he might be of German descent.

Dark templar struck out of the shadows, killing four marines. Their luck ended there, because three raven vessels flew in and dropped auto-turrets, gunning down the cloaked protoss and severely damaging the stalkers that had blinked in near the terran army.

Makatai stood at the edge of the forest and watched as two corsairs crashed after taking too many blasts from the thor. "How are we going to stop them? Nothing will remain of our settlement if they go inside the forest and find it."

"You should have consulted with the dark archons before sending our forces to strike the terrans," the Lady in Black said.

The young prelate frowned. "That is true. I have failed once more."

"You still have a few more tries left," she said.

His eyes glared at her. "How many more of our people must die before you believe me when I say that I am not meant to lead?"

A void ray used the crystal of its tip to fire a blue beam, which fried a marine, killing him in mere seconds. In retaliation, a pair of viking ships flew in front of the protoss aircraft and shot at it repeatedly until it was torn apart and crashed, leaving debris on the snow after exploding in blue flames.

"No one lives forever," a man's grainy voice said from one of the vikings.

"I advise you to tell our forces to retreat into the forest for now," the Lady in Black said to Makatai. "We have no chance as the situation stands."

Makatai lowered his head and then used his psi link to be heard by all members of his army. "Everyone must retreat into the forest immediately! We are outnumbered!"

The protoss stopped fighting and turned around, fleeing from the battlefield again. All that remained of the fleet was one void ray, two corsairs, and two oracles. Sixteen severely damaged stalkers lumbered their way back to the settlement while the marines shouted insults and fired gun shots at them. A dozen probes warped in multiple photon cannons and pylons to keep the terrans away from the forest's edge. Ten corsairs defended the cannons. The terrans retreated for repairs and healing.

Makatai knew that the blockade would not hold for long, but it had to do until the protoss army would receive more members from the reserves, as well as assemble new ships. "I do not know what to do. These savages are a force to be reckoned with. I fear there will be many more deaths on our side if we do not find a way to avoid their tricks."

One of the dark archons next to him said, "We must make use of the signifiers. Their psionic storms can deal with masses of enemies."

The other dark archon did not seem pleased. "We fear that the forest could suffer if the lightning strikes its trees. Our settlement might perish in flames once the burning branches fall over it."

Makatai pondered for a moment. "We could put out the flames later. There is plenty of snow. We could melt it and acquire enough water out of it."

The first dark archon said, "It is extremely risky. We believe that using the annihilators, stalkers, and the fleet would suffice for now."

"Very well, Nandu-Xnora. I shall not put the signifiers on the battlefield yet. However, they must prepare for the possibility of being needed. We have only six of them, or perhaps seven, if Khar agrees to be one as well."

Nandu-Xnora was relieved to hear that from the young prelate. They considered that the signifiers were their last line of defense in case the settlement would be found. Several psionic storms could take out numerous enemy units, especially those worn out by a prior battle.

"I must call Khar and discuss matters with her," Makatai said, activating his psi link.

* * *

Gorgas, with his body fully repaired after the battle, was on his way to the Temple of Young. He saw Garf, who seemed to be heading for the same destination. The stalker scowled at the ghost, shoving him aside as soon as he caught up with him. He pointed a claw at the terran's face. "I shall go court Khar tonight. Do not interfere, creature!"

Garf was taken aback by the stalker's aggressive behavior. He was just a measly human, why did the giant metal spider protoss think he was competing for Khar's affection?

Gorgas tiptoed toward the temple's door and then knocked. Khar opened it and saw the stalker, who said, "Good evening, beautiful star!"

"Good evening, Gorgas," she said. "What brings you here?"

Garf stared at the scene while wondering if he should go visit Khar or not.

"I sense that something is troubling you," the Lady in Black said, standing behind him.

The ghost turned around to face the protoss female. He had to look up to see her face, since she was three heads taller than Garf. "Uh-huh," he said.

"Is this about Khar?"

Garf's eyes started to wander as he tried to think of what to say.

He didn't even have to say anything, because the Lady in Black showed him that she had already probed his brain. "You have developed an interest in her."

He nodded while poking the snow with his right boot's tip.

"You have even considered that she could be a great mate for you," the Lady in Black said.

Garf's face went from pale pink to red almost in an instant. "I … uh … N-nah, I ..."

"Come on, Garf. Even in its broken state, your brain still can't hide your thoughts from me."

"Huu ..." the ghost said, shaking due to the stress.

"Now, if you really want to have a chance with her, the first step is to admit that you are attracted to her."

He looked around and then said, "Okay. I am." His face returned to its normal color.

The Lady in Black squinted her eyes to show that she was pleased with his answer. "Being honest with yourself is a good start. Next, you must tell her."

Garf dropped to the ground and tried to cover himself up with snow.

She raised one of her fleshy eyebrows. "What are you scared of?"

The ghost's hand came out of the snow and then pointed at the stalker, who was at the door of the temple.

"Gorgas? He is too aggressive when it comes to courtship. That is why he has so much trouble finding someone to have his children."

Garf removed the snow off himself. "Chidren?" He looked at the stalker. All he saw was metal. "How? Wih what ...?"

"Our warriors can choose to place their reproductive cells in a storage, so that their genes may be passed on no matter what happens to the ones who have stored. Almost all stalkers have gone through that procedure before leaving their organic bodies."

The terran felt discouraged. Khar was a protoss. It would be stupid of him to ask her to be his partner. They were of different species, and he was almost sure that no children could be produced out of such an unusual relationship. Gorgas would have higher chances of marrying Khar. No. Not just higher chances. Gorgas would have _all_ the chances.

Meanwhile, Khar was starting to lose her patience after trying to make herself clear to Gorgas about her decision. "Listen, Gorgas. I do not feel the same. Besides, I am busy taking care of these children. A few hours ago, four of them became orphans. Seek somebody else for a mate."

The stalker held her hand with his claws. "But, Khar, I have searched everywhere in this settlement. I think that there is none more fit than you to be the mother of my offspring. I am rich. I can give you anything you desire!"

"My decision remains," she said, withdrawing her hand from his grip. "Now please, go seek someone else. I must rest soon, because tomorrow I shall begin my training early in the morning."

"I could help you train," Gorgas said. "You might change your decision once you would get to know me better."

"Go away, you creepy crawler!" the children said, standing behind Khar.

"This discussion is over, Gorgas. Good night." Having said that, Khar used her psionic powers to slam the door before the stalker could enter the temple.

Scowling, Gorgas said, "Perhaps you will be in a better mood tomorrow morning. Good night, beautiful!" Then he walked away.

Garf watched as his rival left the area. He was somewhat glad that Khar had rejected the stalker's advances, but at the same time he continued to have doubts about visiting her and admitting his feelings. There were plenty of other protoss around more suited for the position of partner for Khar, while he was just a damaged human.

"Don't give up now!" the Lady in Black said to Garf. "There's your chance!"

The ghost looked at her and then at the snow, pouting. "But … I n't sam speshes as her."

"The Nerazim are not as strict as the Khalai are when it comes to these things. They encourage their members to seek their own path to happiness. If Khar loves you back, that is all that should matter. Keep in mind that, in this tribe, initiating courtship means you intend to get married with the one you court."

"How d' I c-court 'er?"

"Well," the Lady in Black said, "definitely not with a bouquet of roses. You don't have access to roses here, and the protoss do not want to waste plant life for such occasions."

"Uh ..."

"No, chocolates are not a good idea either."

"How 'bout ..."

"A handmade ornament? Yes, that might be a good gift."

Garf jumped a few times in place. "Yay!"

"You could gather a few rocks and … What? You're thinking of using minerals for the necklace."

The ghost nodded.

The Lady in Black seemed concerned. "You do know that the probes get very hostile whenever something gets into the mineral line, right?"

"Ohoho!" Garf said while punching his chest with his right fist.

"Well, if you really want to go through with this, I advise you to attempt collecting the minerals in the morning, when most of the probes return to the nexus for maintenance."

"Gotcha!" Garf said, grinning at her.

The Lady in Black's antennae rose, looking as if they were bunny ears. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must go check on something." She glowed bright green, and then disappeared.

* * *

Three ravens, with their triangular eyes glowing red in the darkness of the night, flew above the forest, scanning for signs of protoss. They were at full energy, which meant they could rain down auto-turrets and make a massacre below them.

Makatai had been alerted to the presence of the ravens by a female oracle pilot who had been scouting near the settlement. "We must destroy those robots before they get here," the prelate said.

"Doing so may prove difficult," the pilot said. "I foresee an attack that could cripple many of our forces."

"Our dark archons could take control of the artificial intelligence units of those ravens."

One of the dark archons approached him. "Makatai, remember what your father said."

"I know, Khartal-Solash. However, we face foes that could obliterate almost any of our warriors. They are heading toward our settlement. Not even the trees' dense branches will hide it from their detection."

Nandu-Xnora joined the discussion. "There must be another way."

"We could send in some signifiers," Makatai said. "They could unleash psionic storms upon the ravens."

"But the forest might burn," Khartal-Solash told him.

The prelate looked at the trees around him. "It is a risk we must take." He opened the psi link. "Attention! Three signifiers are needed to keep three enemy ravens away from the settlement."

The dark archons frowned and slouched after hearing the young prelate's words.

* * *

The Lady in Black walked through the forest. It was very dark, but her eyesight was not impaired in the darkness. After exploring for a few minutes, she came across Frank, the cyclone pilot. His red goggles covered his eyes while he was trying to get to his vehicle. He saw her eyes shine ten meters away from him.

"D-don't come any closer!" Frank said, holding his palms in front of himself, as if to stop the alien with them.

She disregarded his order and continued to advance.

"If you don't back off, I'll … I'll ..." he looked behind him and then focused on her again. "I'll call for backup!" Swiftly turning around, he ran away.

"Well, he won't be causing any trouble tonight," the Lady in Black said while tilting her head to the right. She straightened her posture and looked at the sky, raising her antennae. "Hmm …" Her body glowed green again, and then she blinked away.

* * *

The three ravens were getting very close to the protoss settlement. Three cloaked signifiers were prepared to strike the enemy with their psionic storms. They wore attires similar to Khar's, but two of the signifiers were male and had green eyes while the third was female and had blue eyes. All three of them had short, clamped nerve chords that dangled, barely reaching their shoulders.

The female signifier raised her right hand, and the other two did the same. They could hear the hissing of the ravens' jets get louder and louder.

One of the ravens sensed the protoss below. "Target acquired."

All three ravens clumped together and hovered there, deciding the best position from which to drop their auto-turrets. Once they figured out their plan of attack, they were flown in, opening their undersides' hatches at the same time.

The signifiers were about to unleash their psionic storms, but a green light that looked like the head of some kind of long-snouted, horned creature extended to the sky, opened up its jaws, and ate one of the ravens before retreating into the ground, among the trees.

"What was that thing?" the female signifier asked. "I have never felt such power before."

The remaining two ravens were so shocked by what they had just witnessed that they forgot to deploy their auto-turrets. They were considering fleeing – and even sent their pilots requests for retreat – but then they were obliterated by a green beam of light that came out of the denseness of the forest. The beam thinned out until it disappeared.

One of the male signifiers activated his psi link. "Prelate? You are not going to believe what just happened here."

* * *

Morning came, and Khar went to the mountain furthest from the forest. There she could train in using her psionic storm. She meditated for half an hour before releasing the lightning. Not all of her psionic energy had been put into it, as it had to be kept weak so she could learn to control it with her mind. It took her ten minutes to make the storm cease, and it drained most of her energy. Yet she was determined to continue meditating and training. The encounter with the terrans had taught her that no place was safe anymore, and that she had to prepare to be a good defender, otherwise she would destroy more than she would save.

* * *

Most of the settlement's probes stopped mining in order to go to the nexus. Five of them remained to mine, waiting for the other eleven to return and take over so that the five could get repaired as well.

Garf was hiding behind the nexus. Having finished eating a root he had found in the forest by digging at least sixty holes, he walked into the mineral line to search for small shards of crystals.

The five probes stopped mining and turned to look at him. Garf tried to signal to them that he was no threat by crouching and showing them his empty hands. The probes, half as tall as he was, slowly approached him while making high-pitched, distorted growling sounds. The robots reminded him of chihuahuas – tiny dogs with big attitudes.

"I jut wan' crstal," he said while pointing at the mineral wall to his right.

All five probes activated their particle beams and locked on to him. Seeing that he was adamant about trying to tear pieces of minerals out of their patch, they charged at him, zapping his body every time they got close enough.

The Lady in Black arrived to see what was going on. "Are you okay there?"

"Hahaaaa!" Garf said while carrying two hands full of tiny blue crystals. His suit was covered in soot, and the skin underneath his suit was sore, but it didn't matter to him. He got what he came there for.

The probes continued to zap his legs and push him away while making angry noises, and didn't calm down until he left the mineral line. His suit removed the soot off itself.

"Now all you have to do is drill holes in the crystal shards and then tie them with wire," the Lady in Black said.

Garf nodded, smiling while staring at the gemstones that rested on his palms. But his smile faded when an unhappy thought crossed his mind.

She noticed the change. "What is wrong?"

The ghost looked at the female protoss and said, "How d' I … Auh, I ca' …"

The Lady in Black patted him on the left shoulder. "I know that it seems difficult to communicate your feelings to her, but even if you cannot speak properly, and even if your mind is unreadable to the other protoss, there are other ways to tell her how you feel. No, writing in anything but Khalani would not work. However, you could use body language."

"Um ..."

"Just start with a bow, give her the gift, and then just act natural."

Garf just stared at her, still looking worried.

"I will come with you," she said, getting her a smile from the ghost.

* * *

In the afternoon, Khar welcomed Garf and Lady into the Temple of Young.

Garf bowed, walked up to her, and then gave her the necklace of blue crystals he made.

"For me? Thank you!" Khar said, the look on her face telling him that she was happy. She put it around her neck. "It is beautiful!"

The ghost grinned ear to ear. "Um … I …" He didn't quite know what to do past that point. Maybe she could recognize a symbol that humans have used to represent love. Holding his hands at his chest, he formed a heart with their fingers. "I lvf ya." His face turned red.

Khar seemed confused. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that, please?" She was definitely confused. "Are you sick? Your face changed its color."

"I'm … in liaev … with yau," Garf said, sweat forming on his forehead. He looked at the Lady in Black, who just stood there, leaning against a chair's armrest. Telepathically, he was suggesting that he needed some help, but she seemed to be laughing internally at his pathetic attempt to make his feelings known to Khar.

"I wish I could understand what you are trying to say," Khar told him. "Your mind is so warped … What did this to you?" She petted him on the head. "You poor soul."

There had to be some way that he could show her what he meant to say. But what gesture could he make that both humans and protoss could understand? The redness had slightly faded from his face, but it returned as soon as he thought about kissing her. He looked at her face with his wide eyes' brown irises.

Khar seemed amazed by his human eyes, in which she could see her own reflection. She may not have been able to read his mind, but she could sense that he was struggling inside. "What is the cause of your sadness?"

It was the fact that she had no lips that he could kiss. Then he thought that, even if she did have them, kissing her might be a bit too aggressive for a confession. What else could he do that might help her understand what feelings he had for her? He looked at her tall, slender figure, and then realized something. The arms!

"If there is anything you would like to share, I am here for yo–" Before she could finish what she had to say, she found herself hugged by the terran, whose head only reached below her neck. "You ..." She felt what he felt, and hugged him back. It all made sense to her at that moment. "You are courting me."

Garf's face returned to being pale pink once he finally got what he wanted to say off his chest.

"A terran proposing to me is … completely unexpected," Khar said. "H-how am I going to explain this to my parents?"

The ghost looked at her with his wide eyes.

"You don't need their approval in this tribe," Lady said, sitting in the chair while playing with her left antenna. "Feel free to marry anyone you like."

Khar looked at her. "I know, but … my parents are very dear to me. It would be polite to ask for their approval if … if Garf is truly asking me to be his partner." She was back to gazing into his eyes.

He nodded at Khar and smiled.

"You are serious," Khar said. "Then I must introduce you to my parents." She could sense the fear the terran was experiencing. "Do not worry. I shall protect you."

Garf wanted to calm down, but reading her mind did not help. He saw images of her parents, and they did not look very happy to meet him. Her father held an orb of green light in his right hand, and he seemed to be aiming it at Garf.

"Do you want me to accompany you there too, Garf?" the Lady in Black asked.

Garf nodded. Khar said, "I am sorry, Lady, but our tradition says that only the couple may meet with their parents to discuss marriage matters. It would be great if Garf's parents could be present."

The ghost frowned after hearing that last part. "Dead."

Khar released him from the hug and patted him on the head. "That is a pity. I wanted to meet them someday. But everything will be fine. Together, we can get through this."

That put the smile back on Garf's face. "Yeah!"

* * *

The terrans came out of their base and started trouble once again at the edge of the forest. In response, Makatai gathered his dark templar brethren and the annihilators, then brought them to the battlefield.

Twenty marines shot at anything that moved and was not one of them while a raven hovered above to point out the cloaked protoss. In spite of the detection, six marines still died at the hands of the dark templar due to not dodging the warp blades fast enough.

"Annihilators! Destroy that raven!" Makatai said, standing in the shade of the forest.

Five annihilators clumped up and prepared to follow a group of ten dark templar into battle. The bulky, silver bodies of the annihilators had strong phase shields, offering them the ability to tank most shots aimed at them. Each annihilator had four spider legs and a pair of blue double cannons with black tips. Next to a rear protrusion that curved forward above the annihilator, the blue cabin of the robotic exoskeleton helped keep the severely wounded pilot alive in a sterile solution. All annihilator pilots were Nerazim who had suffered injuries so dangerous that they would be unable to survive by themselves had they not been given a second chance.

The raven detected the dark templar, allowing the marines to target them. At that moment, the annihilators' cannons shot at the raven, destroying it in less than three seconds.

"We need a scan!" one of the marines said.

A scan was performed over the area, allowing the marines to kill off most of the dark templar present. Makatai managed to stab a marine in the back before retreating in the shadows of the forest, away from scanned areas.

Five more annihilators joined the fight while a probe built a pylon and three shield batteries to recharge the shields of the protoss nearby. Three void rays came from the forest and aimed at the remaining marines, killing them all.

"Let me at them!" the thor pilot said, making his mech run toward the annihilators. He made the thor shoot at them while the void rays concentrated their beams on it. "Hey, SCVs! Fix me up, will ya?"

Four SCVs came out of the large ship and started repairing the thor, helping it tank the damage.

"Corsairs! Put three disruption webs over the giant terran machine!" Makatai said.

The three corsairs flew in and covered the thor and the area around it in a white field of psionic static, making it impossible for the terran to take any action against the protoss that were shooting at him.

Four vikings chased the corsairs away and then picked a fight with the void rays, allowing the thor a chance to retreat. Yet the thor's pilot didn't take that chance. "Come fight me, cowards!"

"Return to base, imbecile!" a deep, distorted voice said, not over the station, but inside his mind.

"Return? But things are just getting interesting! There's more of them now!"

Instead of ten annihilators, there were fifteen, all with maxed out shields thanks to the shield batteries' support.

"The thor you are piloting is too expensive to lose! Return it before we use up most of our resources on repairing it!" the voice told him.

"Sue me, dickhead!" the pilot said, advancing toward the annihilators.

The disruption webs faded out, and there were no corsairs nearby. The thor was free to blast the protoss again.

"There are no trees in the area," Makatai said. "It is the perfect place where we could use the psionic storms. Signifiers! Unleash your lightning upon the terran machine!"

Two male signifiers with green eyes were delivered to the battlefield by shuttle. They were cloaked, so the terrans did not know of their presence. The signifiers raised their hands and emitted green orbs from them, then beamed green lights toward the sky, where they formed psionic storms above the thor.

"Hear the thunder! It knows that I am a god!" the thor pilot said, still hell-bent on blasting the annihilators. He managed to kill four, but the rest were still holding up and dealing considerable damage to the giant mech.

The SCV pilots started to scream when they saw the lightning strike all over the place. After three seconds, they were zapped and turned into crisps, leaving the thor without a repair crew.

Inside the thor, a red light started to flash while an alarm sounded off. The display said that the mech suffered severe damage and that system failure was imminent. The pilot did not care.

Five vikings flew in front of the thor and pushed it back to their base before the giant walker could crumble under the enemy's cannon blasts.

"Get me back into the fight!" the thor pilot said.

"We'll all enter Valhalla, brother, but not today," the viking with the grainy voice told him.

* * *

"Absolutely not!" a male signifier with green eyes said, scowling at Garf and Khar. The wrinkles on his forehead told of his old age.

"But, Father, he proved himself worthy of being one of us when he defended the younglings!" Khar said.

The father approached Garf and looked down at him. The terran's head could barely reach the signifier's chest. "This … _creature_ is far beneath our intellect, our morals, and even our physical and spiritual strength. It has to take lives daily to survive, for Adun's sake! As for his courage … Even the kakarus of Shakuras are capable of displaying courage sometimes, but that does not mean you should _marry_ one!"

Khar pulled Garf away from her father. "The kakarus have yet to demonstrate self-sacrifice for the life of another. Do we not honor such deeds?"

The father grumbled while glaring daggers at the ghost.

"Khor'kai, I believe we should give the terran a chance," the female signifier with blue eyes said to Khar's father.

"Aru, please tell me you are not being serious," Khor'kai said.

"Remember how my parents were against me becoming your wife because you were a Nerazim and I was a Khalai?"

"This is different! We are both protoss! Khar is protoss, and this ..." Khor'kai said as he pointed at Garf. "This is a terran! You do not mix species like this!"

Khar wrapped her arms around Garf. "We asked for your blessing, but even if you shall not grant it to us, Garf and I will still marry after the war ends. Our tribe encourages us to take the paths we want in life, so this is mine!"

Her father stopped scowling, half closing his eyes. "Khar, I just … I just want you to be happy. I really do. But marrying a terran … a terran that has served as a ghost at that … You will be heartbroken when he dies before you even reach your first century of life. Look at him, he is probably around twenty years old and he already looks like the life has been sapped out of him."

"Wha'?!" Garf said. He wasn't going to let himself get told he's an old man, so he started to flex his muscles at Khor'kai. "Oho!"

"That does not impress me," Khor'kai said. "Or any protoss for that matter."

"It still makes him funny," Aru said, giggling at the terran showoff. "He does not seem like a bad person."

Khar's father sighed. "Fine. I will give him a chance to prove himself worthy of our daughter. Khar, Barf, come with me."

"His name is Garf, Father!" Khar said.

"I do not care what his name is. If he is serious, then he should learn a few things about how our clan does things around here."

Garf gave Khor'kai a nasty look, but followed him along with Khar.

They went to a small lake that was hidden under a few of the colossal conifers at the heart of their settlement.

Khor'kai began to explain why he had brought the young couple there. "Our clan comes from Lorcadia, a planet completely covered by water. Unlike the other Nerazim clans around here, we have females who do not bear their young inside their abdomens. They lay eggs. Eggs that can only be fertilized and hatched under water."

"Ooh!" Garf said.

"Here on Cylas, the females lay eggs in that frozen lake that lies before you. The males must also submerge in there to contribute. Do you understand what this means?"

"Uh ..."

"This means that you, who are not protoss, will have to do the same, in spite of not being adapted to the cold. Once exposed to the icy water, your pathetic excuse for a reproductive organ might freeze and fall off."

Garf let out a squeaked gasp after hearing that.

"Do not worry, Garf, we will find a way," Khar said.

"The worst part is that it might all be in vain," Khor'kai said. "We are of completely different species. What makes you think you can establish a family with one of us?"

Garf took a step back. "I … I ..."

"Father, even if Garf and I might not be able to have children of our own, we would still have the younglings at the temple to take care of. The war has left many of them without parents."

"I shall discuss this matter with your mother," Khor'kai said. "Please give us time until tomorrow, so that we can tell you our decision. Also, do not wander too far from the settlement. Your mother and I were sent on a mission in the distant part of the forest last night, and we saw a mysterious creature of light that devoured a terran aircraft and shot down two others."

"We will be careful, Father," Khar said. "You and mom take care of yourselves too. Adun toridas." She and Garf left while the old couple waved at them.

Khor'kai turned to look at his wife. "Aru … I would have never predicted that our daughter could become such a deviant. She is in love with a _terran_ , of all creatures! This is as absurd as a xel'naga developing feelings for a lesser being – and that never happens!"

"Dear, it is her life," his wife said. "I do not know about you, but all that matters to me is her happiness."

Khor'kai joined his bigger than average hands behind his back. "Tell me: what happens when her spouse dies and she has to live the next eight hundred or more years alone?"

* * *

"You know," Khar said as she and Garf were heading for the Temple of Young, "in that lake there are three eggs from which my siblings will hatch in a few days."

"Rly?"

"Yes. We could go visit them when it happens. You should see how amazing it is when the eggs crack and emit a lot of psionic energy, and then the little ones float to the surface. I think it is a wonderful event."

Garf grinned. "Ooh!"

Out of the blue, a protoss voice echoed throughout the settlement. "Nuclear launch detected!"

Garf panicked. He knew that some place nearby was about to become a crater.

"The terrans have ..." Khar said, looking around. She saw the blinking red dot on a patch of sunlit snow close to one of the six photon cannons near the back of the Temple of Young.

The nuke flew above the forest and spotted the target between the branches of the trees, homing in on it. The missile landed and exploded with such power that it made Garf and Khar lose balance and fall to the ground as the earth shook beneath them.

The trees nearby started to wave due to a strong gust of wind. After a few seconds, a smoke bomb had been thrown, making it impossible to tell what was going on behind the temple.

Fifteen centurions arrived at the scene after the smoke was blown away by another gust of wind. They saw the nuke crater where the cannons used to be, and then looked at Garf. "Suspect found. Capture the ghost!" a centurion said to his brethren.

"No, it was not him!" Khar said, getting back on her feet. "You are making a mistake!"

Two centurions blocked her way by crossing their blue warp blades in front of her. "Save it for the trial!"

Other two centurions picked Garf up from the snow and proceeded to drag him away in spite of the terran's struggling and protesting.

* * *

Raven ended up being dragged to the trial too by one of the dark archons. "Why must this vessel suffer for the UED scum's wrongdoings again?" he asked.

"We should have known that you terrans cannot be trusted," Makatai said, closing his eyes. He stood on a platform made of rocks next to the settlement. It was painful for him to announce a public execution – the first one their tribe would witness on Cylas – but the law was clear: traitors would be punished with death.

Khar tried to fight her way out of the mass of ten centurions, but they were too strong. "Garf was with me the entire time! He did not launch the nuclear attack! He did not even have his weapon equipped!"

"You are the only one defending the accused," Makatai said. "According to your father's statements, you are in love with the accused. Your claims cannot be taken into consideration."

"She isn't the only one defending the terran," the Lady in Black said as she appeared on the platform. "I have had several revelations in which the Forbidden Temple was raided. Garf was not involved in any of those possible raids."

"That is not enough proof. Your mind is warped even worse than the terran's. No wonder you take his side. The photon cannons have been destroyed, the Forbidden Temple has been raided, and the only ghost found near the place of the incidents was him."

The Lady in Black scowled. "Makatai, if he raided the temple at that exact moment, then where is a container's worth of the Breath of Creation?"

"I do not know. It was probably hidden somewhere so that he may take it away later. Moreover, why should we trust what you say? You have been teaching my people that we have been worshiping the wrong gods, and you have scared us into not using the gift from the xel'naga, even in these dire times. Just what are you trying to accomplish here?"

"How can I describe it? _Salvation_ should do."

The prelate clenched his fists. "Salvation? You will doom us all!"

She shook her head. "Actually, by holding this pointless trial and not watching over your warriors, who are still out there, trying to keep the enemies at bay, _you_ will doom us all. Oh, yeah, you were also in charge of the production from the moment you became prelate. How many observers do we have right now?" The answer was zero.

Before Makatai could say a word, Raven interrupted him. "Auto-turret production started unexpectedly. Please get out of this vessel's sight until all of the turrets are gone."

Makatai just stared at the raven. "What?"

"Run!" the Lady in Black said.

Raven ejected four turrets that started to shoot at anything they could lock on to. Garf hid behind the platform, avoiding the bullets.

Once the turrets crumbled, everyone gathered around Raven again. There were bullet holes in all of the tree trunks nearby.

"This vessel apologizes for that disaster and advises you to remove all of its energy to avoid another such incident. It appears that the pilot still has some control over this vessel."

"Nandu-Xnora, sap Raven's energy," Makatai ordered. "If it results in his destruction … then so be it. That is likely what awaits him and the ghost anyway."

Raven's body started to look slightly flattened due to its lowered fins. "This vessel is begging you to spare it. It has not done anything out of malice. This vessel has only rested under the roof of the gazebo and has not moved one bit."

Makatai scowled at the aircraft. "You were present when I was telling our warriors about the Forbidden Temple. You have given the information away to those terrans."

"This vessel has not done so willingly."

"Of course you have not done it willingly," Makatai said. "After all, you are a robot. Robots have no will. At least that thought will make it easier on my conscience when you shall be executed."

"Please, Prelate! Have mercy!" That was the first time Raven showed emotion in his voice, along with the ability to speak louder.

The Lady in Black raised her antennae and stared blankly for a few seconds. After her antennae returned to their lax state, she looked at Garf and Raven with concern, then glared at Makatai. "Looks like it's time for me to make an important call." She blinked away.

Makatai ignored her disappearing act and continued with the trial. "We cannot afford to keep possible infiltrators among us. The damage has been done, and someone has to pay for it."

* * *

The Lady in Black sat in lotus position atop a rock and tried to focus while keeping her eyes closed. "Too low altitude. This won't do." She levitated to the top of the Temple of Young and sat there. "Still too low." Maybe the top of a tree would do. Once she got there, she said, "Nah." Her last hope was the tallest peak of a mountain, so she teleported to it and continued what she was trying to do.

* * *

"Let him go!" Khar said, still being kept back by the centurions. "He is innocent! There is another ghost running loose, ready to strike again, and you are executing an innocent person just because he is a ghost who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time!"

"I am sorry, Khar," Makatai said. "He was the only ghost seen at the scene of the transgression. We must eliminate him, along with the robot."

Garf and Raven became catatonic, the former sitting while resting his back against the latter. The people they had thought of as their new family were about to turn their weapons against them at the prelate's command, and there seemed to be no escape in sight.

Makatai looked at the two terrans. It was such a shame that they could not continue to live as part of the tribe. All of his hopes that not all terrans were backstabbing savages were gone. "Garf, Raven, it is with great sorrow that I must sentence you two to death by annihilator cannon fire. If it is any comfort to you, know that your deaths shall be as swift as possible."

The centurions dragged Khar away while the other protoss remained to witness the execution. Twenty annihilators surrounded the ghost and raven.

"Annihilators!" Makatai said, raising his right hand. "Aim your weapons ..."

The cannons were raised, activated, and ready to fire. All Makatai had to do was give the order.

"... and … fi–"

A loud sound of an explosion came from the sky, stopping the prelate from initiating the execution. While his cape fluttered in the wind, he squinted his eyes to look at what had emitted that noise. "What is happening?" As the crowns of the conifer trees shook above, he saw a spaceship that was twice longer and wider than a carrier, and only slightly taller than the famous capital ship. It had a strange shape, making it look more fit for maritime travel than flight. Its bottom half was blue while its top one was white. On its sides, _S.S. Frigate_ was written with silver paint.

The Lady in Black watched the spaceship approach the ground while the powerful wind blew her antennae to the side. "Not exactly what I was expecting, but you guys will do."

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: It Snows in Hell**

The Frigate rested over the bent trees while the Nerazim whispered to each other telepathically, asking questions regarding the nature of the unusual spaceship and its crew.

"Attention, protoss!" a terran male voice echoed from the spaceship's speakers, putting to rest all speculation among the tribe. "We have received an SOS message, and the coordinates pointed to this location. We kindly request that you give us the ghost and raven that you are about to execute."

"More terrans," Makatai said, glaring at the Frigate. "They are here to back up their people."

"We want them unharmed," the ship's terran said. "We are willing to provide goods in exchange, if that is what it will take to get those two from you."

Makatai ignited his warp blade. "You continue to strike at us. It seems we will have no peace until either every last one of you is dead or we all die."

"Now hold on a second! My crew has never tried to strike a protoss encampment first. It would be like poking a wasp's nest: a pretty bad idea."

"I do not know what a wasp's nest is, terran, but what I do know is that the fewer soldiers you have, the higher our chances will be to win a fight against you savages. That is why I shall personally execute these terrans with my warp blade."

Just as Makatai turned to point his blade at Garf, the man in the Frigate said, "Whoa! Whoa! Dude! We're not here to fight ya! We're just a ship of merchants and space travelers. If we wanted to obliterate ya, we would have done so by now."

"Even so," Makatai said, "these two have committed transgressions against our tribe. They must be punished."

"Look, man, just punish them with exile. We'll gladly take them out of your hair, since we need a ghost and we could always use more detectors."

"Our law states that betrayal is punishable by death, terran. These two must die. Now leave, if you truly are neutral in this war, and let our tribe resolve this matter."

"We asked you nicely," the terran inside the ship said. The middle of the Frigate's tip opened its hatch, revealing three cannons stuck around a shaft. Inside the hole of each cannon, a dim orange light started to glow. "It looks like words won't work with you guys, so maybe words _and_ a gun with the power of three nukes might change your mind."

Makatai stared in awe at the giant gun that could level half of the settlement in one shot. Trying to hide his fear, he put on a serious expression and said, "Now you are making demands of us. We shall not sit back and let you corner us, terrans!" Telepathically, he ordered all available warriors to come out of their homes and help him drive the Frigate away.

Analyzing the details, some of the Nerazim refused to take up arms, but many blindly followed their prelate's order and showed up behind him. Six void rays, two corsairs, seven oracles, seventy centurions, ten dark templar, four signifiers, and twenty annihilators were ready to fight on Makatai's order.

"Dude … Dude!" the terran from the Frigate said. "You're prepared to sacrifice a village's worth of warriors just so you can execute two terrans? What kind of a leader are you?"

Makatai walked toward the Frigate and stared at its cannon defiantly. The centurions thought it was an act of bravery to approach the enemy like that, but the oracle pilots and some of the dark templar considered it a sign of foolishness on part of the prelate.

"Idiot," the Lady in Black said while giving Makatai a look of disappointment.

"We will go," the two dark archons said before leaving toward the settlement.

"Return to your positions, archons!" Makatai said, but the two protoss encased in giant blobs of fire did not return.

"Come on, dude, nobody has to die!" the unseen man said. "It's just two terrans! Nobody's askin' you to give up your wives or riches or anything like that."

The young prelate considered his options. He could risk everything his father helped build just for the sake of a law, or he could give the two terrans away and no longer have to worry that his people's secrets are being leaked to the enemy. The second idea seemed to give the tribe members the best chances of survival. Perhaps there was more to being a good leader than just applying laws and sending warriors to battle. "Have it your way, terran. I shall entertain your request."

"Wise choice," the Lady in Black said.

Makatai gestured with his right hand at the ghost and raven while looking at the Frigate, then he said, "If you want them, come and acquire them."

"Rollin' out!" the man said.

A large hatch on the left side of the Frigate opened up, forming a ramp that connected to the ground and to some trees that were under the ship. The first thing to come out was a siege tank, which drove down the ramp and then turned to face the protoss.

The Nerazim knew how much destruction those terran machines could do. It made them worry even more when four more tanks came out and stood behind the first one.

Down the same ramp went twenty four marines in blue CMC suits and ten soldiers in bulky black armors whose helmets had visors that displayed two red, glowing, squinted eyes. Five small, four-wheeled vehicles with guns on top followed the infantry, and then a vehicle with a pair of cannons on its back and no wheels underneath hovered down the ramp. Most of the army had a blue and silver theme.

Among the protoss, whispers were sent telepathically. They were about worries regarding a possible surprise attack from the terrans and about the strength of the army before them.

"Okay, boys," the man from the first tank said. He was the same one who spoke from the Frigate earlier. "I'm gonna get out of my tank to give these 'toss a proper greeting. If they kill me, I want you guys to get back into the ship, lift the ramp, and get the hell out of here. I'll have none of that revenge bullshit, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, boss!" the terrans of his army said.

Before the tank's hatch could be opened, something blasted the vehicle's top.

"Alright, which one of you jokers fired that?" the boss asked while four SCVs came out of the Frigate to repair his tank.

Three of the tanks in the back turned their turrets to point to the fourth tank, whose pilot laughed.

"Very funny, guys ..." their boss said. He opened the tank's hatch and came out. He was a hefty guy wearing a CVC helmet. Its yellow goggles covered his eyes. His mustache was connected to his beard, and they were both made of stubble. As he approached Makatai, he lifted the helmet's goggles, revealing his brown eyes.

The prelate hoped that the terran would not try to pull a trick on him. There didn't seem to be anything resembling a weapon on the tank driver, and a warp blade could easily pierce the guy's unarmored chest. He looked at the five-fingered right hand that the terran leader extended toward him. "What does this mean?"

The terran smiled. "Grab it with your hand and shake it. It's how we greet each other among our people."

Makatai reached out with his own four-fingered hand and gently grabbed the terran's hand, shaking it.

"The name's Tony Cooper. I'm the leader of the Frigate's bunch of misfits."

"I am Makatai, prelate of the Atum tribe."

"It's nice to meet a protoss who knows how to negotiate for a change," Tony said, letting go of the prelate's hand.

"Yeah, and zealots who don't charge at us while screaming 'My life for Aiur!' " a marine said while approaching Tony.

"We are centurions!" one of the protoss warriors said.

"Aiur? That giant rock can stay covered in zerg gunk for all we care!" another centurion said.

The marine lifted his visor to show the look of awe on his face. "Protoss that don't want to give their life for Aiur?! Now _there_ 's something you don't see every day!"

"I'm pretty sure it's just as weird for them to see terrans who don't want to shoot at them, Brian," Tony said.

Makatai frowned. "I can no longer trust terrans. Take those two and leave. We are at war with the terrans who have invaded this planet."

"What started the war?" Tony asked.

"That does not concern you, terran. Get what you came here for and leave!"

"Alright."

Garf sat on the snow, still resting his back against Raven's cold metal plating. All of his muscles twitched uncontrollably. When he saw Tony's right hand in front of him, he snapped out of his trance and looked the tank driver in the eyes.

"Hey there!" Tony said, giving him a friendly smile.

The ghost looked at Tony's hand and then swiftly turned his head to the left to look at a pile of snow. The pile moved. He gasped and flinched away. It moved a second time. He gasped and flinched again. The third time, the pile threw itself at him, covering him in snow.

Tony adjusted the goggles on his forehead while looking at Garf with concern. "What's up with that?"

"His own damaged brain is attacking him," Makatai said. "This happens from time to time. It is not safe to leave sharp objects around where he is present. Perhaps putting him to death would be kinder than letting him live like this."

"Nuooooo!" Garf said, using his hands to remove the snow off his suit and hair.

Tony rubbed his chin with his left hand. "He's a teek, huh?"

Raven decided to make himself heard. "This vessel requires attention."

"Now that's a sad-looking raven," Tony said. "What did ya guys do to it?"

"A pilot is controlling this vessel's turret production from a remote location. This vessel had to be sapped of energy repeatedly to remain harmless. These protoss were about to destroy this vessel. Please disarm this vessel before packing it into the ship."

Tony snapped his fingers. "That's a job for Magellan, our science vessel's AI."

* * *

"Well, I'll be!" Magellan said. "I never thought we would ever get our hands on a raven. They are very expensive." He was an android with three bodies united in their abdominal area around a shaft. Each of the bodies had a face with one left eye with white iris, and three red, robotic eyes sticking out of the right side of the face. Instead of hair, the back and top of each head had black wires sticking out of silver connectors. In front of him there were multiple screens. He would sometimes rotate his bodies around the shaft as if he were a steering wheel – this behavior usually made some of his teammates freak out.

Garf was inside the science vessel because he was needed to launch EMP rounds at Raven from time to time. Makatai, Khar, Tony, and Brian were also there, watching Magellan's robots enter the raven to scan it and then start working on it.

Magellan checked the feedback from his robots and said, "This raven has been altered."

Garf snickered.

"Do you happen to know anything about that, Garf?" Tony asked.

The ghost nodded and pointed at himself. "Uh-huh. I d' it."

Raven spread his fins. "This vessel hates you and wishes that you were dead."

"I see," Tony said. "Why did you do it, Garf?"

Garf proceeded to say a ton of what Tony and the others could only call gibberish.

"I'll lend him my fone so he could type that out," Brian said to Tony. He got the fone – a handheld communications device that also supported games and other applications – out of a compartment from the hips of his CMC armor, and then passed it to the ghost. "So, what's your story?"

Garf took the device and opened an app that could allow him to type what he wanted to say. Even writing was difficult when his mind felt like a fish stuck inside a whirlpool, but he began to type away and hope that he would be understood.

 _I am a ghost who worked for the United Earth Directorate. I specialized in infiltration_

Makatai used the other terrans' minds to understand the text, and then glared daggers at the ghost. Garf noticed his behavior and continued to type.

 _but bear with me. I was supposed to spy on Moebius Corps, the terrans who attack the protoss. I and two other ghosts managed to sneak into Moebius base. There we found dead high templar with damaged bodies. Then found drugged up ghosts and creatures in containers. There was bright light and_

He stopped to put his left hand over his forehead. It hurt to dig through his disorganized memories, but he found some pieces of information that he was looking for.

 _it burned my brain, ruined my teeth, killed my team. I ran, the marines chased me and I cloak. They send that talking scrapheap._

He pointed at Raven.

Raven vibrated his fins. "What are you telling them about this vessel, scumbag?"

 _I seek shelter in mountains, but raven throw turret after turret at me. He run out of energy so pilot decide to try and crush me with raven. Shitty idea, we both roll down mountain. I then try to get revenge by cutting pilot remote control over raven flight. Raven talks shit about me, so I decided to take over so I could fly it into lake. Old protoss leader found us before I could get rid of raven. Raven begd for help and old leader taked pity on him and me. We got added to tribe and were regarded as friends._

"They were regarded as friends until the terrans sent a ghost to aim a nuclear missile at our settlement," Khar said.

 _I was framed. Screw Moebius Corps!_

He looked at Raven and then added another line of text.

 _Screw raven too!_

"This vessel would like nothing more than to impale the ghost on an auto-turret gauss cannon for whatever insults aimed at this vessel were just written on that device."

"Raven, I think you should not let anger drive you so easily," Magellan said. "On another note, you could try using 'I' or 'me' instead of 'this vessel' whenever you refer to yourself. You are not the vessel. You are a very advanced AI, just like me. You are, in essence, a person."

Raven's fins perked up. "That has to be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to this vesse–to me."

"Hu, hu," Garf said, scowling at Raven.

"So, you're coming with us, right, Garf?" Brian asked.

The ghost thought for a bit, then went to Khar. He held her hands in his and looked into those green glowing eyes he found brighter than the stars. "You com'n?"

Khar seemed upset. "Garf, I … I cannot leave my tribe. They need me."

"If you a'nt comn', th'n I stay," Garf said while slamming his right foot onto the metal floor to make sure she got the message.

"No, Garf. If you stay, my tribe's people will always find something to blame on you. Besides, you are starving here. Lady said that you cannot even hunt, and you waste too much energy digging for roots or climbing trees for berries. These terrans could offer you the right food and everything you need. They even have females of your species."

"Bu' I promis'd to marry yau!" Garf said, hugging her.

Brian stared at them wide-eyed. "Dear god. They're engaged."

Khar ran her right hand's fingers through his hair. "Please, Garf. I do not want you to continue to suffer. Go with them!"

He hugged her tighter. "I staaaay!"

"What are we gonna do with you?" Brian asked while shaking his head.

Makatai really wanted Garf to leave, but the damn ghost just wouldn't do him that _one_ favor. The thought of exiling Khar as well came to his mind, but he couldn't quite find a solid reason to give her that convenient punishment. The only thing that might have made her deserve to be exiled was the incident in the forest, but Makatai knew he held part of the fault for her putting the children's lives in danger. Because he told the civilians that they are safe in the center of the forest and that their army would keep the enemy at bay, his people continued going about their lives as they would in times of peace.

"We just don't seem to have any luck when it comes to ghosts," Tony said.

The Lady in Black leaned against the doorway behind everyone, eavesdropping.

Tony continued. "We had four of 'em back in 2500. One turned against us, so I had to put an end to his madness before he'd harm more of our members. One was real good at nuking, but eventually he got spotted and killed by the zerg we were fighting. One was a bit odd, kept wearing a conical hat and spouting nonsense a lot. He was our strongest ghost, but the day after we beat the zerg, he simply vanished. Some of our crew theorized that he might have turned into this giant, green phoenix squid thing we saw on the same day. And then our last ghost … seemed very affected by the latter ghost's disappearance. Poor guy. The next day after that event, he ran away with ten bottles of wine and … drank himself to death."

The Lady in Black's antennae drooped while she closed her eyes for a second. After looking away from everyone, she left through the corridor.

"If only I had bothered to ask Octavian what he was going to use all that wine for ..." Magellan said.

"Don't blame yourself, Magellan," Tony said. "I wouldn't have suspected a thing either."

Brian grinned. "Yeah. Even I used to stash booze back then. But I went for the really good stuff, not that fermented grape juice."

Tony smiled at the marine and then looked back at Magellan. "Besides, even if you hadn't allowed him to take the wine, he would have found some other way to go."

Magellan imitated a sigh. "I guess you're right."

"We'll leave ya to work on Raven for now. See ya later."

"Later, my friend."

* * *

Makatai, Tony, Brian, Garf, and Khar were beamed down from the science vessel – which looked similar to a flying saucer with three spikes extending up from its edges – onto the floor of the Frigate.

As they made their way out of the ship, Makatai decided to interrogate the terran leader. "Why does your capital ship have such a strange shape?"

Tony chuckled. "It is unusual, isn't it? It's shaped like a boat, but I didn't choose its shape. Its previous owner had some bizarre tastes."

"Yeah," Brian said. He pointed at the marines who stood guard next to the Frigate. "And then one day three of our marines got fed up with the previous owner's crappy leadership skills and got rid of the guy by distracting him with a discussion and then throwing a frag grenade at his feet."

"Totally worth it!" a marine with a mechanical right leg said.

"Believe it!" one of the men in black, bulky armor said in a deep voice. "Worth every finger I lost that day, baby!" The cheeks of his helmet gained up to eight red, glowing vertical bars depending on the volume of his voice.

Makatai's eyes went wide. "You have … slayed your former leader?"

Brian scowled. "Yeah. The guy just didn't want to admit he didn't know how to lead. Kept sending us to attack the zerg without thinking up a plan of action, and then we'd end up in situations that could have been avoided. Heck, this one time, the zerg managed to sneak some drones into our base, and then we returned from a fight to find a fuckin' _hatchery_ between our vespene refineries!" He shook his head. "Then he wanted it nuked ... while our refineries were near it! Good thing our ghosts had some common sense and allowed the rest of us to safely tear down the hatchery."

"We were lucky that a buddy of mine took over us, in spite of the captain's orders," Tony said. "He … sacrificed his life to direct a nuke to the zerg hive and end the war. He would have turned 23 two days ago."

"After getting rid of the captain," Brian said, "we had no leader for a few days, but then we all agreed that our big boy Tony here should be the boss." He gave Tony a light punch in the beer gut and smirked.

Tony smiled and punched him back in the armor's abdominal area, although he used all of his strength, since he knew he could not harm Brian. "Yeah, you just _have_ to become the boss once your buddies steal your tank and threaten to never give it back unless you agree to be their new leader."

"You terrans have a weird way of picking your leaders," Makatai said. "My people traditionally choose from relatives of the former leader, or if there is no next of kin, they choose the strongest warrior."

"Not all terrans are like us," Tony said. "Some get taken over by tyrants, some get to pick their leaders from a list of willing candidates … We just have our own style."

A strong gust of wind blew through the branches of the trees, making their needles quiver. Khar and Garf became worried when they realized that the same kind of air current was present when the attack near the temple had happened.

Tony put his goggles over his eyes and looked at the sky.

Makatai realized there was something strange going on, but he could not see anything in the spot from which the wind seemed to come. "What is it?"

" _That_ ," Tony said while pointing at the sky, "is a banshee."

The wind's strength intensified, making the trees' branches shake wildly.

"And _that_ is a fleet of banshees."

Makatai looked at Tony and then at the sky. There wasn't anything visible there. "Are they concealed?"

Tony put his right hand over his helmet. "Oh, shit. You guys don't have any observers, do ya?"

"I … forgot to order new observers after the destruction of our last ones," Makatai said.

"Magellan, share the Frigate's detection with the 'toss!" Tony said before jumping into his tank and closing the hatch.

Five seconds later, the protoss could see the ghostly shapes of the terran ships that flew above them. The banshees had a pair of fans that were situated on their sides, as if they were wings. They made only a slight hiss while they circled the area. As they flew closer to the ground, they started to drop cloaked ghosts on the snowy ground.

Tony grabbed the wheel of his tank. "This doesn't look good. Everyone prepare to fire!"

The ghosts wore visors with two lenses instead of wearing the familiar ghost mask. Their weaponry was different from what ghosts usually carried. Some had rifles meant for rapid fire, while others carried what seemed to be rocket launchers. They targeted protoss and unrecognized terran alike and fired.

Tony's crew fired back, making the ghosts jump around to dodge.

The banshees launched missiles toward the ground, hitting two of the tanks and making Tony's infantry run out of the way. Loud shrieks of terran women's voices echoed from the sky.

"Get the air units out, boys!" Tony ordered.

"Wraith ready for the fight!" a man with raspy, relaxed voice said as he flew his y-shaped aircraft out of the Frigate. He made it cloak and then fire its twin cannons' air-to-air missiles, making some banshees retreat from the detection range of the Frigate.

The tanks killed off three ghosts, but received severe damage from the ghosts' rocket launchers. Four SCVs came to repair the vehicles, but had a tough time dodging the missiles launched by a few banshees that employed hit-and-run tactics.

"Valkyrie prepared!" a woman with German accent said as she flew out of the Frigate in a bulky ship three times longer than the wraith. She patrolled the area to ensure that no banshees would clump up and try any more surprise attacks.

"Void rays! Attack the banshees!" Makatai ordered.

The void rays chased the banshees away from the Frigate, but then lost sight of them as soon as they were out of the detection range.

* * *

"Our settlement is under attack!" a male protoss voice echoed through the village.

A strong wind shook the branches of the trees above while the houses were being bombed by the invisible banshees.

"We have no choice but to use our psionic storms," Khor'kai said to his wife.

"May Adun keep our people safe from the fire," Aru said.

They both cloaked and held green orbs of light in their right hands. They stared at the sky, trying to spot the hidden foes above them. The direction from which the missiles were fired and the rippling of the clouds gave the signifiers a general idea of the position of the banshees.

"For our tribe!" the old couple cried out as they unleashed their powerful storms over the settlement.

Three banshees could not flee fast enough, and the lightning destroyed their plating and turbofans, causing them to crash into the trees and explode into pieces that rained down over the houses.

A scan was performed by the enemy terrans, and one banshee swooped down on Aru while its pilot let out an eerie shriek. Aru could not react in time, and the missiles exploded upon contact with her body.

"Aru!" Khor'kai shouted as he ran to his wife's side. He picked her off the ground and looked at her eyes. They no longer had any light in them. Her body was pale, limp, and bleeding. Her mind was blank. "O, Aru … My gem. My wonder. They have taken you away from me." He gently put her body back on the snow and turned around to look at the remaining three banshees.

The airships cloaked and opened fire on the Temple of Young while their pilots let out their sharp screams.

"Befouled terrans!" Khor'kai said, putting all of his fury into the green orbs forming in his hands. With a swift motion of his arms, he released the light toward the sky and spread it into lightning that struck everything below it.

Two of the banshees decloaked and crashed into a tree while trying to escape. The last one managed to get out of the storm's range, but Khor'kai threw three more storms around the banshee, giving the aircraft nowhere to go. The turbofans broke off the ship's body, and the pilot died in the crash next to the settlement.

Three observers – one-eyed, levitating drones responsible for detection for the protoss – came out of the settlement's robotics facilities, but were far too late. The first thing they saw was the fire that ate away at the conifers' branches. One of the observers used a voice line from an old terran film. "Huston, we have a problem."

* * *

Tony's medivac dropships arrived at the settlement to put out the fires and heal the protoss citizens by flying above them and using their healing beams.

Tony came with his tank, accompanied by his army's vehicles. He got out and looked around at the damage suffered by the silver houses and the temple. "Holy crap, guys! Where are your cannons?"

"We had a few placed near the temple," Makatai said, "but they were destroyed in the nuclear attack. We are low on resources because we have used most of our minerals on placing cannons at the edge of the forest closest to the enemy base."

"You're kidding me, right?" Tony said, raising his eyebrows. Then he scowled. "Right?"

Makatai bowed his head and looked at the ground. "Unfortunately, I am stating the truth."

When Khar entered the settlement, large snowflakes started to fall from the sky. She saw her father, who was kneeling next to an unconscious protoss. A strange, cold feeling coursed through her chest as she approached him and saw that he was cradling the wounded body of another signifier. His thoughts of anguish reached her mind, and before even seeing who the deceased was, she knew. "Mother!" She ran up to her father and joined him in hugging the lifeless body while her eyes scattered green sparks. "I wish I had been here before it happened. I might have been able to save you, Mother."

Garf went next to them. He had a sorrowful expression on his face and could feel the pain of both of the living protoss in front of him.

Khor'kai got up and stared down at Garf. "You!"

The ghost looked at him, confused.

"Not only have you made me lose my daughter's respect, but you have caused the need for the cursed trial that led to the death of my wife!"

Garf straightened his back and gave the nastiest stare he could give to Khor'kai. He wanted to make sure that the tall protoss knew he was no longer scared of him, and that he firmly denied the accusations.

"Father!" Khar said. "You cannot blame these things on him. Do you not see? Your constant, unjustified hatred toward my fiancé is what made me lose respect for you. Mother did not die because of him. Garf had no say in whether the trial would be held or not. It was Makatai who put Garf and Raven on trial when he could have just put them in jail, behind a force field, until the war was over."

Khor'kai stared at her, eyes wide and thoughts silent. He looked at Garf, who continued to glare at him. Then he went to talk with the prelate. "You know, Makatai, there is truth to my daughter's words."

Makatai frowned while looking at the signifier, who was one head taller than him.

Khor'kai scowled. "The trial and the poor management of our production and forces are all to be pinned on you."

"I … I tried," Makatai said. "I tried to do what I thought a prelate should do. I never wanted to lead. I was satisfied with being a warrior. Why did my father have to saddle me with this responsibility?"

The signifier squinted at him. "If you cannot lead your people wisely, then leave."

Makatai thought that perhaps it was best for him to follow that advice. Someone would take his place eventually. Then his people might get a true leader. With his head hanging in shame, he cloaked himself and walked away without anyone noticing.

* * *

"Marauders! Tank for us while we shoot at these damn ghosts!" one of Tony's marines said.

The soldiers in bulky black suits surrounded the group of ten marines and fired blasts out of their suits' arm cannons. The marines shot with their rifles, wounding any of the ghosts caught in the scan. This made the Moebius Corps agents retreat into the shady areas of the forest.

One marauder noticed that a ghost was trying to sneak her way into the Frigate, so he broke off from the group and went to stop her. "You must pay for a ticket if you want to go on a cruise, baby!" he said in his deep voice.

She aimed her rocket launcher at him and fired. The projectile barely threw the marauder a few steps back.

The marauder giggled. "Oh, ya like it rough, huh?" He fired at her, but she moved out of the way and the shots landed on the ramp.

Another rocket was launched at the marauder, but he jumped to the side. The projectile landed at the feet of the marines behind him, slightly damaging their armor.

A marine shook his fist at the marauder. "Tyrell, if you're not gonna tank, at least don't make her shoot in this direction!"

"It's about to get heavy," Tyrell said as he fired at the ghost's feet.

The ground seemed to be pulling the ghost down due to the concussive shell that the marauder used on her. Before she could fire another rocket, Tyrell ran toward her and jumped, landing over her with all of his weight. Pinned to the ground, she squirmed in an attempt to slide from underneath the marauder. It was all in vain. "Get off me, you fucking asteroid!"

"Baby, I'll have you know that while part of that weight is from the suit, the rest is from all the love I got inside me."

"I don't care, you pathetic creature whose sole purpose is to suffer!" she said, trying to reach for her rocket launcher.

Tyrell's arm cannon didn't let her hand get close to the weapon. "Hey now, no one's purpose is just to suffer. Sure, life's not all pink, but look at all the different shades of love that can be found in it!"

"There is no love. Love is like a burger dangled in front of you by life, to make you go on, even though you will never get to eat it!"

"Aw, hun, those mean guys at Moebius Corps broke you down."

"Hey, Tyrell!" Brian shouted while running up to the marauder and the captive ghost. "Stop flirting with the enemy and finish her!"

Tyrell looked at the ghost under him. Her straight hair was shoulder-length and jet black. He found that it made her look cute. "But she is _so_ fine ..."

Brian scowled. "So is your mom, but you don't romance her."

"I know you got the hots for my mama, but she's not available. I could get you my sister's number though."

"Sweet!" Brian said.

"Would you two primitive lifeforms stop blabbering and shoot me already?" the ghost said.

The marauder sniffed the smell of smoke and felt his armor heat up. "Miss, some ladies are hot metaphorically, but you're taking hot to its literal meaning!"

She exposed her gritted teeth. "Burn to ashes, you worm! I will stand to the right of the master and laugh as this flawed cycle comes to an end! Your suffering will be all for naught!"

A green light appeared next to the three terrans and then turned into the Lady in Black. "My, my, _that_ is the worst case of amonitis I've ever seen!" she said while using her right hand's claw to poke the head of the ghost, who started to hiss and growl.

"What the fuck is amonitis?" Brian asked, taking a few steps back. "Is she possessed or something?"

"Kind of," the protoss lady said. "Luckily for this girl, I got _just_ the right thing to cure her." She searched between her nerve cords and then brought out a small, white, plastic pill bottle. After opening its lid, she took out four yellow capsules and grabbed the ghost by the scruff of the neck. "Open wide, dearie!"

The ghost refused to comply, keeping her mouth shut tight.

"Fine. Let's do it the hard way," the Lady in Black said. She grabbed the ghost by the nose, leaving her unable to breathe. Once the ghost gasped for air, the protoss shoved the pills down her throat.

"That was pretty brutal," Tyrell said.

The ghost started to cough violently, and her body twitched every second.

"Get off her, now!" the protoss lady ordered.

The marauder wondered if it would be a good or bad idea, but decided to trust the protoss and released the ghost.

"My head!" the ghost said, getting on her knees and holding her head with her hands. "What did you do to my head?"

"Your head is fine now," the Lady in Black said, "unlike earlier, when it was the home of madness."

"You alright, babe?" Tyrell asked the ghost.

She raised her visor over her head and then glared at him with her brown eyes. "Why? Why did you not kill me?"

"Listen, Lin," the Lady in Black said after reading the woman's mind, "you and everyone from Moebius Corps have been lied to. There is nothing awaiting you once you die. You have been drugged with terrazine to ensure you remain obedient to your boss."

"That can't be true!" Lin said. "He showed me where everyone who died went! He told me that terrazine would make me stronger, and it did! I gained the ability to set things on fire!"

"Terrazine does enhance the psionic powers of ghosts, but it has terrible side effects such as hallucinations, delusions, and anger issues. Jorium can remove those side effects and restore your sanity while allowing you to keep the benefits of the terrazine, but if you were too far gone, it wouldn't be able to save you."

Lin looked at the ground. She focused her mind on it, and a flame started to form over the snow, melting it away before fading out. "So, I am still a spectre."

* * *

Meanwhile, at the edge of the forest, where pieces of protoss armor and ship plates stuck out of the snow, Moebius Corps gathered six battlecruisers, six vikings, and six banshees. To make matters worse, a snowstorm was brewing.

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Protoss and Terran Unite!**

Large clumps of snowflakes fell from the gray sky, adding to the snow in the settlement. The probes did not care. They continued to gather minerals and take them to the nexus, providing new material for future ships and armors.

An object with a white, lumpy top and a brown, pointy underside landed in the mineral line. Three probes stopped mining and stared at the "intruder". Emitting high-pitched growls, they approached the object and then zapped it at the same time, turning it into ashes.

Before the probes could resume mining, another object like the previous one landed in the mineral line. This time four probes attacked and removed it.

Three more such objects landed, causing the entire probe group to attack them.

"Come on, Brian, stop distracting the probes!" a marine said.

"But they're so hilarious when they fry the popcorn ..." Brian told him while throwing three more popcorn kernels into the mineral line.

"They're gonna zap us if they figure out who's throwing the stuff."

"Chill, Nathan, they're too slow to catch up to us. Hey, I wonder what would happen if they'd meet Smiley."

"He's an older model. They might see him as an intruder."

"Let's find out!" Brian said before running toward the Frigate.

Nathan shook his head. "Tsk, tsk ..."

* * *

"So, what's a spectre?" Tyrell asked while sitting at a table in the Frigate's cafeteria alongside Lin. Without his marauder armor on, he was a dark-sinned, burly man with stubble on his chin. His right hand had only the thumb, along with the middle and ring fingers while his left one had only the index and pinkie.

"A spectre is a ghost with enhanced psionic powers and better equipment," Lin said. "Moebius Foundation's scientists put us in containers and gave us terrazine, a purple gas that smells like copper. It … also makes ghosts recover memories that were locked up by the Dominion's Ghost Academy. I was transferred along with five other ghosts to Moebius Corps in exchange for one guy that the Moebius Foundation grew in a vat. Moebius Corps attempted to turn him into a ghost due to his somewhat high PI score, but he became extremely violent. They were glad to trade him in for us, even if we only scored between 5 and 6.5 on the PI scale."

"Heh, they're just as bad as the Dominion itself," Tyrell said, then looked at the three hamburgers on a plate on the table. One of them was half-eaten.

"They are part of the Dominion. Mengsk's son, Crown Prince Valerian, owns the Moebius Foundation."

"So this Valerian guy is your boss."

"Well, he wasn't directly leading the Foundation. Dr. Emil Narud is in charge of the inhumane experiments, the security, and the paramilitary unit. But ever since we've landed on this planet, he has stopped communicating with us, and someone else took his place. Someone with a strange voice. That someone has convinced everyone that he is our new boss, and that we will ascend once we die for his master. I have never seen him directly, but he has shown me what he calls 'glimpses of the future'. In those glimpses, everyone who opposed his master's will were erased from existence, while we stood by the master's side. I … don't really remember what the master looked like, but he was gigantic for sure."

Tyrell frowned. "Are you sure you weren't hallucinating due to the terrazine?"

"I don't know," she said, looking at her yet untouched cup of coffee. "But it is strange how so many of us have heard the same voice and were told of the same master."

The marauder finished his coffee, then said, "Baby, y'all have been brainwashed."

She sighed while resting her cheek on her left fist. "Sure seems like it."

At another table, Garf comforted Khar by hugging her and mentally sharing his feelings with her. From time to time, she would put her fingers in a cup of warm tea. She could not taste it, since she lacked that sense and a mouth, but she could absorb the water from the tea and enjoy the warmth.

More men and women sat at other tables in the cafeteria, eating or drinking and discussing about hot topics regarding the protoss they've just met. One such topic was about how protoss reproduce and how a human would be able to "get it on" with such an alien since protoss had no known orifices. Those kind of discussions annoyed Garf.

Tony sat at the counter, along with the other four men of his tank crew. "I wonder where Makatai went. I wanted to give him a few tips on leadership," he said.

"Who knows," a blond tanker said. "Probably was ashamed of his failure to protect the village."

Tony opened his mouth to say something, but then heard the sharp screeching of an annoyed robot. He looked around and saw Brian carry a yellow probe.

Its fins were longer than those of the probes of the Nerazim, and had blue tips. The probe also had two big green eyes and two smaller ones on top. Each of the smaller eyes had one even smaller blue eye above it and another toward the center of the probe's face. A blue line on the probe's bottom side of the face made it look as if it were smiling. On its back, it wore a sedge hat.

"Hey, Brian!" Tony said, "What are you doing to Smiley? You know he hates being picked up."

"I'm helping him make some friends," Brian said.

Tony stared in confusion as the marine left with the probe. "What?"

* * *

Frank tried to sneak back to his cyclone once again. It was there, in the forest, damaged but likely still able to move. He jumped into the seat and prepared to lift the vehicle's front so he could seal himself in and start the engine. Before he could push the button, he saw a hovering vehicle with sharp edges drive around his cyclone. "A diamondback? I thought they were all trashed when the Dominion was done with them."

"Stay right there!" the diamondback's pilot said. He wore a black helmet with lilac glowing lines on its ridges. A dark visor extended from the helmet over the pilot's eyes. Most of his face was covered by a three-hole balaclava. He had no arms, but his helmet allowed him to control the vehicle with his mind.

Frank scowled. "Great. Just great. I was about to get away, and then this guy decides to wander aimlessly through the forest and finds me."

"Not all who wander are lost," the diamondback pilot said, looking around. "Some of us are drunk."

"For fuck's sake … What do you want from me?"

"Hold your position and do not touch anything! I'm gonna call a medivac to pic us up."

Frank gritted his teeth. "Damn it!"

"Diamondback Connor Veis here! Requesting a medivac to pick up me and this … uh … hey, man, what's that thing you got there called?"

"It's a customized cyclone that can be piloted by a human."

"He says it's a cyclone," Connor said. "Come pick us up."

Frank sighed. If it weren't for that fool, he'd be out of there already.

Connor grinned at him. "Hey! Hey, cyclone! Hey!"

"What do you want now?"

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Frank."

* * *

Brian put Smiley next to the mineral line and pushed the robot toward the other probes, who stopped mining and looked at the unusual visitor.

"Yawa?" one probe said.

"Nyaaa!" Smiley told it.

The other probe nodded. "Yayayayaya!"

They all gathered around Smiley to inspect him, and then invited him to mine with them and take the crystals to the nexus.

"They seem to have accepted him pretty fast," Brian said to Nathan.

"Good," Nathan said. "Otherwise he'd be dead the moment they've surrounded him. I've seen some probes do that to a buddy of mine. Poor guy ... He never stood a chance."

The Lady in Black walked past the two marines. "Has any of you seen the prelate?"

"Uh, no," Brian said. "He just kinda disappeared after the attack on the village."

Smiley left the mineral line, shook his sedge hat off, then picked it up. He went next to the Lady in Black and put the hat at her feet.

She took a few steps toward Nathan and said, "If you see him, please tell him to order some cannons to be placed near the temple. I will go speak with your leader."

Smiley came up to her and put the hat at her feet once more. She took one look at him and then left. The probe picked up the hat and followed her.

* * *

"I think we should just get out of here before more of those Moebius Corps guys attack us," the blond tanker said to Tony.

"While that sounds like a good idea, I think there might be something good for us in this war."

"Tony, you're crazy," a tanker with brown hair and mustache said. "This isn't our war."

"I know, dude. But if they're all brainwashed like Lin was, we might be able to save some of 'em and get 'em on our side. If we wanna colonize a planet, we'll need as many people as we can get, and we better have a considerable army to guard our people."

The Lady in Black arrived in the cafeteria and overheard the discussion between Tony and the tankers. "If you want to save some of those terrans, take this." She threw him the plastic pill bottle with the jorium capsules. "You will need to give them a certain amount of capsules, depending on their symptoms. If you can reason with them, no capsule is needed. If they act confused and keep wanting to go against you, two capsules are needed. If they say stuff such as 'Glory to the master!' or mention anything about a master or death being freedom, or if they start hissing and screaming at you, give them four capsules. If they have red or purple glowing eyes or start levitating, put them to death."

Smiley came after her and put the hat at her feet again.

"Okay ..." Tony said, looking at the pill bottle.

"I am going to the mountains to search for the prelate," she said. "We need him here before those terrans attack again." Her body glowed bright green, and then she blinked out of sight.

Smiley took the hat and left the cafeteria.

* * *

The blizzard made the forest's trees bend in the direction of the strong wind. This made it difficult for the Moebius Corps' fleet to fly toward the settlement.

"Why did this snowstorm have to start now?" a young woman piloting one of the banshees asked. "It may compromise our mission."

"A good pilot flies through any weather, Clara," the viking pilot with the grainy voice said.

One of the battlecruiser captains with a white mustache butted into the conversation. "I have an announcement to make. I am drunk."

The banshee pilot rolled her eyes. "This just keeps getting better and better ..."

* * *

A female stalker walked through the village, gathering the other stalkers. She found all but one. "Where is Gorgas?"

One of the male stalkers said, "He has been put in prison for breaking into Khar's bedroom three times despite the restraining order."

Indeed, Gorgas was inside a cell in prison, behind a force field, frowning. "Cold is the void ..."

* * *

Taking shelter in a cave during the blizzard, Makatai sat on a rock and pondered his situation. He wasn't the leader everyone expected him to be. He was not his father. The settlement's people will just have to choose a new leader, one much stronger than him. The Lady in Black might finally stop pressuring him into being a prelate. She would be a wiser, stronger leader than he could ever be.

Water dripped from the cave's stalactites, the droplets landing into a lake next to the prelate. The cave had become his secret place of meditation ever since he had turned 30. Now at the middle of his first century of life, he came here not just to meditate, but to think of his future.

He knew that the tribe's members would be furious once they would find out that their prelate had abandoned them. Makatai might no longer be welcome in the settlement after that, so he would have to live like a nomad. Journeying could be interesting, and he knew that many Nerazim split off from their tribes to choose their own paths in life. He had lost his four friends in the failed ambush, and then his father died too. The only living people he could consider friends were the two dark archons – who were once Alys'tor's four friends before merging – and the Lady in Black – the mysterious female protoss who appeared out of nowhere on the void ray in which he and his father traveled two years ago. However, even they would probably want nothing more to do with him after what he had done.

"It's not too late to come back, you know."

That voice. He recognized it immediately. "Lady, even Khor'kai can see that I am not a good leader. I have abandoned my people while the war is still ongoing. What right do I have that allows me to return to the settlement now?"

"The right to become a better leader," the Lady in Black said. "Sure, they will be disappointed in you for leaving like that, but we can't hold grudges while those terrans threaten to attack the settlement."

"But what can I instruct my people to do? Those savages are tearing through our forces with ease."

"Well, look at what we have on our side, and then think of how we can use that to our advantage."

Makatai thought of all the ships and ground troops of his settlement. The two dark archons stood out from the rest because of their ability to permanently control the minds of others. "If we can mind control the enemy's strongest warriors, we could turn them against their own kind. They will fear us for it."

The Lady in Black scowled. "Have you forgotten what your father asked of the dark archons?"

"My father may have been wise most of the time, but he is wrong about mind control. With it, at least we can get some use out of the members we remove from the enemy's army."

"Makatai, your father realized something about the enemy we are facing. He had a good reason to ban the use of mind control. It turns out that those terrans are already being influenced by something sinister."

"Why should that matter? We do not have dark archons for nothing!"

The Lady in Black's eyes started to glow bright green while Makatai's body became paralyzed and started to levitate.

Makatai wanted to scream, to struggle, to be released from the invisible grip, but he was unable to take control of his body. He was locked inside it.

"How does it feel, Prelate?" Lady asked. "Your body is my puppet. Your mind is silent to the world. You have no choice. This is exactly what some of those terrans are going through right now. Their consciences are clawing at their minds, yet the terrans will continue to follow their master's instructions until they become nothing but thralls in the eyes of the world, and tortured souls inside themselves. Do you understand now why your father did not want to let the dark archons use mind control on those terrans?"

The young prelate wanted to say yes, but his own brain refused to allow his thoughts to exit.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot hear what you're thinking. Nobody can. I could keep you as my thrall forever, and maybe turn you into the leader your people need, but I never was into this whole mind control thing." She smiled at him through her eyes. "Besides, it would be more interesting if you'd manage to become a good leader by yourself."

Makatai was given back control over his body, and then found himself dropped into the lake. He swam back to the surface and got out of the water, shaking to get most of the drops off. "I shall think of some other way to deal with the transgressors then."

* * *

"Hey! Hey, Frank! Hey! Hey!" Connor kept trying to get Frank to react, but the cyclone pilot just slouched over the counter in the cafeteria. He got closer. "Hey, Frank! Hey! Hey! He-he-hey!"

"Will you quit doing that?" Frank said, pushing him away.

"Hey, wanna have a drinking contest with me?"

"No, go away!"

"C'mon! Drinking contests are fun!"

"No, they're not! They just get you shitfaced!"

"Scared that I'll beat you at it, Frank?"

The cyclone pilot sighed. "Fuck this shit …" He pointed at Connor. "Alright! You're on!"

Khor'kai entered the cafeteria while carrying three naked protoss newborns in his arms. "Khar! Look! Your brothers and sister have hatched!"

"Oh!" Khar said. "I thought they were going to hatch two or three days later. This is so unexpected … I am sorry that I missed your hatching, siblings."

The three hatchlings looked at her with their wide, green eyes full of curiosity. One of them looked at Garf and tried to reach for him with a little hand. It had short claws.

Garf didn't mind, so he gently grabbed the little hand with his thumb and index finger and shook it while smiling.

"He will be your brother-in-law, Garf," Khar said.

Khor'kai scowled at that reminder, but tried to avoid making a rude comment regarding the stubborn terran.

Khar closed her eyes. "If only Mother were here to see them ..."

Tony sat alone at the side of the counter opposite to where Frank and Connor started their drinking contest. He turned around to look at the protoss babies. He had never seen any before. They were similar to human newborns, except that they didn't have mouths, noses, and ears, and they were already born with what might count as long hair – the nerve cords. Their skins were lilac, a trait that seemed to be passed down in their family.

"I think Smiley's broken," Brian said after bringing the probe in. He made sure to carry its hat too.

The robot kept making whining sounds while its two big eyes' lenses were slanted downwards.

"I think that's called being sad," Tony said. "What happened? Did the other probes reject him?"

"Nah, they were fine with him. I don't know why he's acting like this all of a sudden."

"Well, take him back to his basket. He'll probably feel better later."

"He's a robot, Tony. They either work or break down."

"We'll get Magellan to check him later. Now he has his hands full."

* * *

The battlecruisers, vikings, and banshees were closing in on the settlement. As bad as the snowstorm was, it helped them hide their presence from the Nerazim and other terrans. The master was guiding them toward the enemy. Everyone's suffering would come to an end soon. Very soon. The master promised.

* * *

Makatai stared at his reflection in the lake's water. He could see his prelate attire thanks to the green light generated by a … fire? How did Lady manage to make a fire in the middle of a cave, without using any wood or other materials? That didn't matter that much to him. What _did_ matter was that his people were still expecting orders from him, and he had not informed them of his leave. He could contact them through his psi link, but it would be a cowardly thing to do. Returning to face his people again would be the right course of action.

The Lady in Black stared blankly as her antennae were raised. She stood like that for a few seconds before lowering the extensions. "Prelate, we must return to the settlement at once. The terrans are launching a new attack. They will be there soon."

"I have taken everything into consideration. I know now what I must do. I shall return to my people, and we shall do everything we can to end this war with as little bloodshed as possible."

"That's the spirit!" she said.

Makatai stared at her with his eyebrows raised. "What does that mean?"

"Never mind. Let's go, Prelate."

* * *

Tony and Brian ate steaks at the counter while Frank and Connor were drunk and singing _Terran Up the Night_ together.

"Looks like they've warmed up to each other pretty fast," Tony said while pointing at the cyclone and diamondback pilots with his thumb.

Brian chuckled. "Well, Connor finally got himself a drinking buddy."

An explosion shook the Frigate's walls, prompting the people inside the cafeteria to stand up.

"Hey, boss," the wraith pilot said over the station. "We have six carriers at our doorstep, and they don't look friendly, judging by the Yamato cannon blasts they've shot at the Frigate. Oh, and they have six vikings hiding behind them."

"Battlecruisers?!" Tony said, his eyes going wide.

"Yep. They're all over me."

"Damn it! Attention Frigate gunners! Bring out the side cannons and fire at the cruisers!"

Three cannons came out of the left side of the Frigate, from the blue area just above the text. They were fired simultaneously, and the shots exploded, dealing severe damage to all six battlecruisers.

"Attention, enemy battlecruisers! Those were warning shots. Do not approach or fire at our people or the protoss, otherwise I will be forced to order another round of shots. Trust me, you don't have enough armor to take them."

While two of the battlecruiser captains chose to tell Tony to die and called him a pitiful creature, the captain with the white mustache said, "The master has promised good vodka for this. Doesn't matter if I kill you or I die."

Tony saw an opportunity there. "Dude, we got good vodka for you. You don't even have to fight for it."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, just stop shooting at us, land that cruiser somewhere, and join us. We got a freakin' cafeteria-bar over here!"

The other five battlecruisers turned against the drunk captain's ship and shot it without hesitation, killing him and its crew. Pieces of debris fell between the trees.

"This ain't good," Tony said to Brian while looking at a screen in the cafeteria. It showed video footage of what just happened outside. "They're taking down their own members at the slightest sign of interest in switching sides."

"Die, you pathetic creatures!" a woman with purple glowing eyes said, her image appearing in the bottom right corner of the screen as transmission incoming from one of the battlecruisers.

"Die, die, die!" a young man with similar eyes said, his image replacing the woman's.

Three other men hissed as their faces were displayed next. The same strange eyes they had were a clear sign that they were already too far gone.

Tony frowned. "Oh, boy. I hoped to never again be responsible for the death of people who are being mind controlled. But here I am, having to make the same harsh decision."

Brian put his left hand over Tony's right shoulder. "I know you hate this, man. It would be great if we could save those poor chumps, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do."

"I guess this is one way of saving them," Tony said. "Since there's no other way … Attention Frigate gunners! Fire at the battlecruisers! They're already doomed."

The cannons fired, and the battlecruisers were hit, exploding and crashing over the forest.

"Well, now there's enough metal for the 'toss to use," Brian said, "if they'll ever need it."

Tony looked at the screen, seeing what remained of the enemy's fleet. "It's time to deal with the vikings."

* * *

The wraith and valkyrie kept the vikings away from the Frigate, but they did not know that five of the six cloaked banshees dropped spectre agents at the edge of the Frigate's detection range. The five spectres used their rifles' lasers to paint the targets for the nukes. Five blinking red dots appeared close to the Frigate.

"Boss, you might want to get rid of those ghosts before they nuke our ship into oblivion," the wraith pilot said.

"I've an id'a!" Garf said before he left the cafeteria.

* * *

Raven rested inside the science vessel. He was painted blue, and instead of the Moebius Foundation symbol – which looked similar to the atom symbol but with its two side hoops raised a little higher – he now sported an emblem of a ship's steering wheel on each wing's root. His moment of peace and quiet was over the moment he saw Garf enter the room. "Why are you here, UED scum?"

Garf went to a computer near Magellan, opened a word processor application, and then proceeded to type.

"He says he wants to pilot you," Magellan said after reading what Garf wrote.

"Access denied. I do not want to end up inside a frozen lake again."

"He says your detection ability and your turrets would be useful against the spectres that are trying to nuke us."

The five nukes landed and shook the frigate.

"Uooooh!" Garf yelled. He typed something again.

"He says, 'Please, Raven! They're nuking us all! Magellan can pick you out of the lake anyway, if I don't keep my word.' "

Raven lowered his fins. "I know I will regret this, but fine. Get in."

* * *

The wraith was chasing a viking above the Frigate, doing all it could to not let it land.

"You are dealing with the best pilot in the world here," the wraith's pilot said.

"I call bullshit," the viking pilot said. "I am the best, and I'll prove it!" He fired at the wraith, who cloaked and avoided the torpedoes.

A scan allowed the viking to see the wraith, and they both clashed midair, trying to push each other.

"Your armor is crap. No wonder the Dominion replaced wraiths," the viking pilot said.

"At least I got cloaking and I don't need to transform to shoot ground targets."

"Guys!" Tony said over the station to both the wraith and the viking. "This is a war, not a dick measuring contest!"

"If it were, Helga could vouch for me, right hun?" the wraith pilot said.

"Jack, you naughty boy!" the valkyrie pilot said while keeping the other five vikings away.

"I'll either get rid of you now, or I'll go to Valhalla where I'll get everything I want," the viking pilot said. "I win either way."

"Hey, man," Brian said to the viking over the station. "I know your boss promised you a lot of stuff, but you can have all the booze and food you want if you join us. We even got hot babes. We also got a few guys, if you swing that way."

"In Valhalla, I can get tenfold of that!"

"Valhalla's not real, man. You can take our offer, or you can risk losing everything for what may be an empty promise. You choose."

The viking pilot stopped pushing the wraith with his ship. After thinking for a few seconds, he said, "Alright, I'm joining for the ladies!"

The other five vikings tried to shoot him, but were shot down by a goliath who came out of the Frigate.

Garf flew Raven out of the ship and went to search for the spectres. They ran into the hovering banshees.

"Auto-turret engaged," Raven said as he placed a turret under a banshee. He threw three more, making the banshees scramble. One of the ships wasn't fast enough and was shot down.

* * *

Lin saw the raven's live video feed on a monitor in the cafeteria and noticed a familiar code – B-7 – on the banshee that had just crashed. "Sis!"

"What's the matter, Lin?" Tyrell asked.

"My best friend piloted that banshee! Come on! Maybe we can save her!" Lin said before leaving the cafeteria in a hurry.

* * *

The banshee pilot was barely conscious among the wreckage, keeping her eyes closed. She could feel every broken bone in her body.

"Sis!" a familiar voice said. "Clara!"

She opened her eyes at the mention of her name. "L-Lin ..." She saw a human figure through her blurry vision.

"Sis, can you hear me?" Lin asked. "We need to get you into a medivac."

"Betrayer!" Clara said, then showed her gritted teeth.

"No, I'm not betraying you. I'm saving you. You are being manipulated by–"

"You chose to suffer. F-fine by me. Where I'm going … there won't be any pain."

Lin grabbed Clara's bleeding left hand. "Hang on, Sis! Stay with me!"

Clara could see the sky darken as a ship approached. Her vision was also fading to black.

"The medivac's almost here, just stay with me, Sis. Please."

Tyrell, in his marauder suit, came to see if Lin was safe. He found her at the side of the unconscious banshee pilot.

Unfortunately, Clara stopped breathing, and the medivac staff could not resuscitate her.

* * *

Raven spotted the cloaked spectres, but he was out of energy, so he could not manufacture a new turret yet. Two male spectres kept firing EMP shots at him while the other three spectres – two women and one man – painted the targets near the Frigate for the next three nukes.

Garf didn't know what to do.

"Go snipe them, you idiot!" Raven told him.

"But I … I ha' nevr ..."

"You are a ghost. You are supposed to be good at sniping humans and aliens. I am giving you a good view of the enemy. Do. Your. Job."

"I can't!"

"They would shoot you in a heartbeat."

Garf started to shake. "I n-neva k'lled. I …"

"You Earth people are all just a bunch of pansies. Welcome to the Koprulu Sector, where it's kill or be killed."

The wraith and viking wanted to attack the spectres, but the banshees were causing too much trouble to allow the two ships to leave the Frigate's side.

From the shadows, Makatai struck like a whirlwind, killing the three targeting spectres before the nuclear missiles could land. With no one to direct them, the nukes exploded above the forest, away from the settlement. The other two spectres were allowed to run away.

"I have returned," Makatai said, his cape fluttering in the wind. He used his psi link to contact the Frigate's captain. "Tony? I humbly request your aid in this war. Together, we could save these terrans from the control of their vile leader."

"I'm all for saving these folks, Makatai," Tony said. "We'll help you guys, but we'll mostly be providing defense. You and the other 'toss should focus on the offensive, because if we end up taking heavy losses, we're leaving. Can't risk the lives of my entire crew, ya know."

The prelate nodded, looking into Raven's camera – about which he learned from Garf's mind that it was sending footage to the Frigate. "Fair conditions." He raised his fiery warp blade toward the sky. "Let our forces unite!"

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Wrath of the Void**

Three observers flew past the base of Moebius Corps, trying to get information regarding the enemy army. They could not get too close, because there were missile turrets everywhere, as well as three vikings floating above the big Moebius spaceship. All of the photon cannons and void pylons had been dealt with by the terrans.

Something in the distance caught the attention of one of the observers. All three flew in its direction and, upon getting closer to the towering structure, they could tell by the rotating top that it was a missile turret.

After getting dangerously close to the turret's area of attack, they noticed that there were more such structures further ahead. Those turrets were definitely defending something, but it was too dangerous to fly further. In spite of knowing this, one of the observers came to the conclusion that if it would give its faction a bit more information about what was beyond the first turrets, the Nerazim might have higher chances of winning the war.

The closest turret locked onto the observer, detecting it in spite of the drone's cloaked body. Missiles were fired, and the observer got hit three times before exploding. Fortunately, its death was not in vain, because it managed to send images of the command center guarded by the turrets.

* * *

"Looks like they've managed to expand," Tony said, watching the screen that was on the cafeteria's wall.

"We shall strike their expansion, cutting them off from the mineral and vespene gas supply," Makatai told him.

Khor'kai interrupted them. "How are we going to attack them when they have so much detection?"

"Our warriors need not hide to take that expansion down," Makatai said.

"We have lost many warriors while you were gone, Makatai. The terrans on our side will defend, but we will not be able to do much damage if we attack with what remained of our army."

Makatai frowned. "The goal is not to deal damage, but to convince the enemy to stop fighting."

"You expect us to talk the enemy to death?"

"No. I expect our warriors to employ strategies meant to lure the enemy into traps first, and then attempt to negotiate. We will only use lethal force if we absolutely need to do so."

"So, you intend to save them," the signifier said, giving the prelate a nasty stare. "After all they have done, after all they have taken from us, are they not deserving of death?"

"The one who controls them deserves death. The manipulated terrans, on the other hand, deserve a chance to redeem themselves."

"Do what you want, Makatai. But I will no longer take orders from you. I seek only revenge."

The prelate frowned and shook his head while Khor'kai left the cafeteria. He understood that the signifier had no more respect for him, especially after the death of Aru due to lack of defenses in the settlement. Makatai hoped that Khor'kai would not cause their army too much trouble by going against orders.

* * *

Tony looked around at the SCVs near the Frigate. "Harold! You and the boys should get busy making turrets."

One of the SCVs came forward, helped by the thrusters on its back, and then saluted with its arm drill to the cockpit. "You got it, man!" its pilot – a dark skinned guy in his mid twenties – said. He turned his mech around to look at the other SCVs. "I will deal with putting turrets next to the Frigate. Lewis, Michael, and Josh, you guys cover the southern side of the settlement. Kyle, John Williams, and George, you guys cover the eastern side. John McDonald, Sergei, and Jake, you three will take the western side. That leaves Jasmine, Florence, and Jimmy with the north. You got your orders; now go, go, go!"

The SCV teams scattered and got busy, building towers near each edge of the settlement's short metal fences. Tony and the tankers put their tanks into siege mode to the left of the Frigate. Fifty marines patrolled around the settlement while other fifty patrolled around their team's ship. Brian preferred to hang around Tony's tank alongside ten other marines, just in case the enemy would get too close.

To the right of the Frigate, Smiley decided to make himself useful and planted a pylon between four blue barracks. There, ten more marines waited in case they were needed to replace the wounded – or killed in worst case – marines. Once the pylon had been warped in, he placed four photon cannons around it.

Six marines ran away, screaming, while the other four went into the barracks to start the buildings' jets and fly them away. When Smiley's cannons finished warping in, they began to fire at the fleeing barracks.

"Tony! Smiley's bringing the darn cannons again!" a marine said while following the flying barracks.

"Just stay out of their range," Tony said. "They'll still provide us with defense against the enemy."

* * *

Khar and Garf took the three hatchlings to the Temple of Young and put them in the machines that kept them protected from disease. Their nerve cords had been severed and clamped by their father.

"I shall stay here and protect the little ones. What about you, Garf?"

The ghost thought for a bit, and then said, "I take Raivn an' grd ousid'."

It took a while for Khar to figure out what Garf meant. "You will take Raven and guard outside?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Be careful. I don't want to lose you too." She hugged him. As he hugged her back, she was reluctant to let him go. Still, she knew he'd not change his mind, so she released him.

* * *

The Lady in Black passed through the settlement's cemetery. In it, a grave was made for Aru. It had a metallic monument shaped like the branches of a lightning bolt, at the base of which a blue crystal rested. Around the monument, there was a wreath for the fallen.

Twenty other graves were also there, fifteen of them having crossed metal blades, while the rest had metal sculptures shaped like void rays. All graves had blue crystals at the bases of their monuments.

The Frigate's crew members dealt with burying the corpses of Clara and the battlecruiser's drunk captain, along with its thirty crew members – an unexpectedly low amount of people for a battlecruiser. They could not find the bodies of the other Moebius Corps terrans, since the Frigate's cannons blasted the other five battlecruisers to pieces.

* * *

Moebius Corps was gathering its army at the edge of the forest once again, but this time they were ready to throw everything they had at the Nerazim and the other terrans.

The thor stood in front, flexing its arms. Five vikings hovered above it. Five banshees flew around the army, ready to shoot any ground attackers. Six firebats in orange armor similar to that of marauders showed off their arms' dual flamethrowers. Four reapers used their jets to fly chaotically next to the army. Forty marines were itching to get the order to march toward the settlement. Three ravens flew over the forest's edge, inspecting the area to make sure no dark templar or signifiers were around to strike from the shadows.

"This is the final strike," the deep voice of the mysterious boss echoed through the minds of the Moebius Corps terrans. "I will lead you to victory."

"Glory to the master!" the terrans said in chorus.

* * *

Five void rays flew past the mountains and headed toward the place where the expansion was spotted by the observer. Ten annihilators trailed behind, their cannons prepared to blast any enemies that would pick on the ships.

* * *

In the forest, Frank and Connor drove between the trees.

"Hey, Frank! Where are we going?"

"To rescue some buddies of mine."

"Oh. I thought you were trying to lure me into an ambush or something like that."

Frank stopped his cyclone. "If you fear that you might get in trouble for following me, feel free to go back to your ship."

Connor stopped his diamondback next to the cyclone. "I'm still gonna follow you. If it turns out you're just trying to get rid of me, first I'll be sad … then I'll turn you into a kite with the help of my rail guns. Don't worry; if I survive the ambush, I'll bury you."

Frank rolled his eyes. "Look. If there's an ambush, we'll _both_ likely get killed. These guys don't take betrayal lightly. So either give me a hand or go back to the Frigate!"

"Did you just …?" Connor said, then looked at the stumps that were once his arms. "Man, way to rub salt into the wound!"

"Wait!" Frank said, his eyes widening after he realized why Connor was upset. "I meant I need your help. I'm not a jokey kind of guy."

Connor brightened up. "Oh. Okay. I'll help you find your friends."

* * *

Makatai led an army made of ten void rays, ten annihilators, one hundred centurions, four signifiers, twenty dark templar, six corsairs, ten stalkers, and the two dark archons. It took him a lot of discussions to convince his people to give him another chance, but they all knew that nobody else was willing to take on the responsibilities of leading the tribe. He gladly took the ones who still had at least a grain of respect for him, and brought them near the edge of the forest.

The first thing that caught their attention was a bright, whitish blue light. It was difficult to see what was emitting it, but judging by the many silhouettes of terran machines and soldiers, it was safe to say that it had to be something belonging to Moebius Corps.

As the Nerazim advanced slowly and carefully, Makatai and the signifiers felt a chill that seemed to pierce through their skulls.

"There is something sinister about that light," Makatai said. "It is full of hatred, and it holds a power much greater than a Khalai archon. Could it be … a twilight archon?"

"We want its energy!" the dark archons said, feeling attracted to the light like moths to a flame.

"Stand your ground!" the prelate ordered. "This could be a trap set up by Moebius Corps."

"It is a creature so strong that its brain waves are causing ripples within our minds," one of the signifiers said.

The light came closer, and Makatai could finally see more features at its core. "It … It looks like a protoss, but it is too monstrous. I would say it could be of zerg origin, but it has so much psionic power that it cannot be of the Swarm. Unless … the zerg have figured out a way to infest us."

The glowing, levitating creature had silver skin, with sapphire pauldrons and a similarly colored crest that looked like that of a hydralisk zerg strain. Through the crest, the being's pulsating brain could be seen. The creature's face had no mouth or nose, but an elongated chin. Its eyes glowed bright blue, like those of the Khalai. The body was like that of a protoss, but its hands had only three fingers ending in sharp claws. Its legs had a pair of spikes coming out of their thighs' outer areas. From the creature's back, six thick spikes with claws at their ends protruded – three on each side – along with four blue glowing tentacles that waved in the wind of the blizzard.

"We must try to sneak past that abomination," Makatai said.

* * *

Back at the settlement, Garf piloted Raven around the Temple of Young.

Magellan contacted Raven over the station and said, "Ray, try to avoid throwing turrets at the enemy unless there is no other way to deal with them. Focus more on deploying point defense drones."

"Ray?" Garf said, raising his left eyebrow.

"I gave our raven a name of his own," Magellan told the ghost.

Garf grinned. "Heh."

"What is so funny, UED scum?" Ray asked.

Before Garf could attempt to answer, he saw a cloaked banshee on one of the raven's screens. He pointed at it.

"I hope you have planned how to get rid of the attackers too, Magellan," Ray said.

"Indeed, I have. Our viking will deal with that banshee. Just deploy the drone."

Ray built and deployed the point defense drone, keeping the banshee's missiles from attacking the temple and the six cannons around the building.

"Hey, banshee!" the viking pilot said as he flew his ship toward the enemy. "Fight or flight? You choose!" He shot at the banshee, chasing it away.

Ray raised his fins. "Well, that was easy." Out of nowhere, two missiles were shot at him. His energy storage had been depleted. He vibrated his fins while saying, "Fuck your EMPs, stupid spectres!"

Ten marines rushed to chase the fully masked spectres away, but one of the Moebius Corps agents used his psionic powers to unleash an ultrasonic pulse, stunning all of the marines. When thirty more marines arrived, the two spectres ran away toward an area of the settlement where there was no detection.

Garf piloted Ray to chase down the spectres, knowing that they could be up to no good. He saw them, but he also saw Khor'kai, who was looking around while holding green orbs of light in his hands. The signifier was unaware that one of the spectres was channeling a lot of psionic energy while targeting him.

"Noooo!" Garf said. "Wa'n 'im! Wa' him!"

"He is too far away to hear me," Ray said. "You will have to snipe that spectre."

"But–"

"If Khar's father dies, I'm not the one who will feel guilty for not doing anything. After all, I have no energy left."

Garf ran toward the raven's hatch, which opened up to give him a good view of the spot of interest. Ray sent the location of the spectre to Garf's rifle scope. The ghost's arms began to shake as he pointed his weapon at the spectre's head. It took all of his mental strength to keep almost still. He gritted his teeth, pulled the trigger, and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see what became of the spectre's head.

Khor'kai saw the enemy's decloaked corpse to his left and then looked up to see the raven and Garf. The latter clutched his rifle and mumbled nonsense to himself. A bit further from the spectre's body, the signifier saw a shimmer, so he unleashed his psionic storm, causing the cloaked spectre to scream.

Once the lightning disappeared, the spectre uncloaked while being sprawled over the snow. He was paralyzed from the neck down, and was breathing rapidly.

A medivac arrived, but neither its healing beam nor its medics could do anything to help the spectre recover. "He's basically a vegetable," a medic said after using a device to scan the wounded man.

Brian approached the spectre and pointed his rifle at the guy's head. "Poor bastard. Might as well put him down." He pulled the trigger, and the rifle fired.

* * *

The void rays and annihilators tore down the missile turrets and were getting very close to the expansion. Moebius Corps was alerted, and twenty marines were dispatched to deal with the nuisance.

Frank noticed that his three marine friends were part of the sent squad, so he said, "This is our chance to rescue those numskulls. Let's go!"

"I'm with you!" Connor said.

* * *

The protoss-zerg hybrid levitated through the forest, leading the way for his army. The thor punched trees left and right to make way for itself. While most of the army went forward, the marines were held back by an invisible wall.

"What the hell is this?" one of the marines said, poking at what he could not see.

"Maybe we should shoot it," another one said.

Just then, a white fog descended upon the area, causing the marines to be unable to fire.

"Do not go any further!" Makatai said, remaining unseen. "We do not wish to battle you. You are being manipulated by that creature that leads you."

"It's the protoss!" a marine said. "And they used that corsair stuff on us!"

"The master said to kill them, because they will seek to prolong our suffering," another marine said.

When the disruption web faded out, Makatai and the other dark templar scattered away from the marines while a scanner swept the area. The prelate decided to take on another target. He went for the thor.

The giant mech followed the hybrid. Its pilot hoped to face glorious battle once he'd reach the protoss settlement.

Makatai took advantage of the pilot's mentality. "You say you seek a worthy opponent. Do you hope to find it among the protoss?"

"I sure do," the pilot said. "I have been waiting to get into a battle where I could show everyone what I am capable of."

"Are you aware that on this planet there is a creature much more powerful than any of the protoss?"

"There is?! Where can I find it?"

"It is right in front of you, and you are taking orders from it."

The thor pilot looked at the hybrid. "Oh. The boss. Ja, I have been thinking about challenging that asshole for some time now. He keeps pushing me around."

"Then why did you not challenge him?"

"Because I've never seen the douchebag until now. But now that I got him right in front of me ..." The thor's cannons were locked onto the hybrid.

The creature turned around and said, "Fool! I know your intentions!"

The firebats and the reapers started to attack the thor, only to be kicked away by the giant mech.

"Come fight me, boss!" the thor's pilot said, waving the mech's right arm toward himself.

"You dare challenge my leadership? I, Xilnu, have been appointed by the master to lead you stray creatures to victory. The master is the truth-bringer and is never wrong. He has chosen me because he knows I will successfully complete the task he gave."

The reapers backed off, but the firebats were crazy enough to go for a second attack at the feet of the thor. One of them ended up being hit by the mech's right arm, and held on to its cannon while he was lifted into the air. Then he was thrown at the hybrid.

After getting hit in the face with the firebat, who had only one third of the hybrid's height, Xilnu grabbed the confused armored soldier by the head and then threw him back at the thor.

The firebat slid off the mech and fell on the ground. "Is either of you aware that there is a person inside this suit?"

The thor pilot did not care. He lifted the firebat and threw him at Xilnu again. The hybrid was tired of the foolish game and put an end to it by crushing the firebat's chest under his right foot. The screams of his dying soldier meant nothing to him.

"That … was a bit too much," the thor pilot said. He pointed the right cannons at Xilnu. "You should pick on someone your own size."

Giving the thor a death glare, the hybrid put his hands forth and fired a purple beam at the giant mech, surrounding it with a sphere of the same color. The attack lifted the thor into the air and proceeded to slowly crush it. "Foolish creature. You tell yourself you are a god, yet you cannot even hold a candle to me. You lie to yourself to make your pointless existence feel less miserable. You are no god, and will die like the rest."

"I'll be back," were the last words of the thor pilot before Xilnu completely crushed him with the metal of the mech.

* * *

"Don't let them run to the sides, Connor!" Frank said while shooting at the legs of his three marine friends.

Connor drove his vehicle back and forth in a C-shaped path, making sure that the marines could not escape from the cyclone.

"I always knew you would betray us, Frank!" one of the marines said while holding his damaged legs and leaning against a mountain behind him. The other two marines tried to climb the mountain but kept falling back down.

"I'm on your side, you dumdums!" Frank said.

"Then why are you _shooting_ at us?"

Frank stopped the missile launchers. "Because you've been brainwashed and I need to disable you before I can put you inside my cyclone."

"We're not brainwashed!" a marine said.

"Okay, you mooks, let me ask you a question. If your boss told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

"Yes!" one of the marines said.

"I think so," the marine holding his legs said.

The third marine fist-pumped. "Glory to the master!"

"See? You're all brainwashed," Frank told them. "Now stand still! This will only hurt a little bit, but it's nothing the medivac's healing beam can't fix."

The three marines started to scream.

* * *

"Motherfuckin' zealots!" a Moebius Corps marine said while firing his rifle alongside his squad.

"We are centurions!" the dual-bladed Nerazim shouted while blinking toward the marines and attacking. They left the terrans stunned and then retreated, trying to avoid killing them.

"Listen, terrans, I have an offer for you," Makatai said, being heard only by the marines. "Go to the mountains and stay there until the war is over. Then you will be taken by our allies' medivac. If you consider switching sides, then run away from the ones who remain in Moebius Corps."

Ten marines found the offer tempting enough that they gave in and ran for the mountains. The ones who remained shot at them, but only managed to kill three. The other seven disappeared into the forest.

"We are slowly chipping away at their army," Makatai said to his followers. "If we keep this up, Xilnu will be at a disadvantage against us."

* * *

The five Moebius Corps vikings arrived at the Frigate and did their best to dodge the missile turrets' attacks. As soon as the valkyrie came after them, they retreated to guard the banshees nearby.

The five tanks saw the hybrid, who emanated the ominous blue aura. They pointed their turrets at it.

"I don't know what that thing is," Tony said, "but it definitely doesn't look friendly."

The Lady in Black jumped atop Tony's tank and threw a flaming green scythe at Xilnu. "Heads up!"

Xilnu was taken by surprise when the tip of the scythe sank into his forehead. The weapon dissolved, leaving a huge hole in the hybrid's head. He fully recovered from the injury and said, "You will have to do better than that to defeat me!"

"Oh, I'm just getting started!" the Lady in Black said, her eyes suggesting she was smirking.

Xilnu's blue eyes glowed brighter as he used his mind to call the banshees to him. He absorbed the energy from the ships and then let them crash and explode around him.

The tanks and the Frigate's cannons could kill him, so he decided to blink out of sight while leaving his army to deal with the other terrans and the protoss warriors.

* * *

Garf sat in front of the raven's thirteen screens and sobbed while continuing to clutch his rifle. He was still not over the fact that he had just killed another human.

"Quit wailing, you wimp!" Ray said. "Sometimes you have to take a life to save another. That's how the world works."

The ghost continued to whine unintelligibly.

"How did you manage to survive this long? That is one of life's greatest mysteries."

Garf gasped and pointed at the screen in the top right corner of the large, central one. He saw the hybrid.

"I do not know what that thing is," Ray said, "but I do not think I have enough turrets for it."

Xilnu used his hands to fire blasts of bright blue plasma at the photon cannons around the Temple of Young until there were none left.

Garf grabbed the miniature keyboard he had hooked to the raven's wires at the start of their misadventures. He made Ray's body fly toward the hybrid.

"Are you crazy? That thing could blast me into spare parts."

"Ditract," the ghost said.

"What?" Ray said.

"Dissstract!"

"You want to provide a distraction?"

"Yup."

The raven used the interference matrix missile on Xilnu, rendering the hybrid unable to do anything. Three auto-turrets were deployed, forcing Xilnu to retreat.

* * *

Three Moebius marines – two men and one woman – were on the ground, leaning against the trunk of a giant tree. Their armors were darkened by soot, and their visors were gone, with only a few shards remaining on their helmets. One man was missing an arm, while the other man and the woman were missing their legs. The heavy blood loss was slowly rendering them unconscious.

The Lady in Black stopped next to them.

The terrans stared at her with wide eyes. They could not run, and they were unable to defend themselves.

One of the men asked, "Who are you? What do you want from us? Isn't it enough that your … high templar guy did this to us?"

The Lady in Black's green eyes started to glow brightly as she walked toward the marines.

* * *

The vikings managed to destroy three void rays before flying away from the valkyrie, wraith, and viking of the Frigate crew.

The goliath with blue armor tried to take on the four reapers but ended up constantly walking into the mines thrown by the enemies. Noticing that his walker was taking too much damage, its bald pilot yelled, "G.G.!" and ran toward the Frigate.

The reapers continued to chase him. "Hit and ruuuun!" they all said.

One blue vehicle with a flamethrower stopped in front of the reapers. Its pilot transformed the vehicle into a mech with shields for arms. "These guys turned my vehicle into a robot! Cool, huh?" He burned two of the reapers, then switched the mech back into scouting mode, catching the rest of the reapers and burning them as well. "That'll teach ya to pick on our goliath!"

The stalkers blinked around the marines, trying to lure them away from the settlement and the Frigate. The centurions and the annihilators did their best to keep the enemy marines away from the tanks' range of fire. Negotiations were difficult, because most of the marines were either too scared or too brainwashed to consider switching sides.

Ten dark templar could not sway any of the firebats, who cared only about burning all protoss to a crisp. Sensing the cruelty of the enemy, the protoss chose to keep attacking until all of the bulky armored terrans fell to their warp blades. The price paid was the lives of six dark templar.

* * *

The Lady in Black adjusted her bandanna over her chin. Behind her, resting against the tree trunk, there were three empty marine armors. Her body glowed green, and then she blinked away.

* * *

Makatai took ten dark templar with him and headed toward the settlement after hearing that Xilnu was already there. As soon as they saw the hybrid, who destroyed three annihilators with ease, they charged in to attack.

Xilnu emitted a psionic shockwave, blasting all of the dark templar away from him. "Puny little protoss. You should be thankful that the master has found a use for you, in spite of your failure to meet his expectations."

"What are you talking about?" Makatai asked, with his warp blade ablaze.

The hybrid looked at him. "I am perfection incarnate. I am what you and the zerg could never become on your own. I am xel'naga!"

Makatai stared with wide eyes at the being before him. "A xel'naga?"

"Keep telling yourself that, perversion," the Lady in Black said.

Xilnu quickly locked eyes with her. "What?!" He didn't get enough time to read her mind, because the dark templar jumped at him again, sinking their warp blades into his flesh. "Feeble creatures! Your own kind is on the verge of dying out. Your struggling is futile. To prove it to you, I shall strike you where it hurts the most!" He blinked away so fast that the dark templar could not keep up with him in spite of their own ability to teleport.

"Where is he going?" Makatai asked, trying to give chase by blinking as well.

The Lady in Black remained to guard the temple from five Moebius Corps ghosts that kept trying to call down nuclear strikes on it.

* * *

The three Moebius ravens were pestering Tony and the other tankers by throwing auto-turrets between their tanks.

"Whatever you do, don't fire your tanks at these turrets!" Tony ordered.

"But they will destroy our tanks!" the blond tanker said.

"Okay, let's blow each other up instead!" Tony said before face-palming. "Just sit it out; the SCV crew will be here to fix us up soon."

The SCVs came out of the Frigate and avoided the turrets while starting the repairs on the tanks.

The valkyrie and the wraith chased the ravens away. The three drones ended up getting shot by Smiley's photon cannons and suffered a system failure, crashing and exploding on the ground.

"Well, looks like we're only getting to keep one raven out of the deal," Jack said as he flew his wraith over the Frigate.

* * *

Garf used Ray to look for Xilnu. They found him at the lake where the Lorcadian nest was located.

Xilnu raised his hands and fired a plasma blast into the lake, turning the blue-shelled eggs into an omelet. Then he teleported away again.

"Fu' you, fk you, fuck!" Garf said, spotting the hybrid in the distance again.

Xilnu had his eyes on the Temple of Young. He raised his hands and prepared another blast.

Garf gasped. He saw the temple's top get obliterated by the powerful beam of psionic power. "Nuooooooh!"

Noticing that the ghost was forcibly opening the hatch, Ray asked, "Where are you going?"

Garf did not reply, jumping out of the raven and landing in the snow. He ran toward the temple while a few small branches got torn off from a tree and started to trail behind him, as if pulled by invisible strings.

The temple crumbled and was in ruins by the time the ghost reached it. He got smacked in the back by the branches, which then fell on the ground. He went to dig through the rubble and found Khar, along with most of the children, all alive and only having a few scratches. Khor'kai showed up as well. They dug together, getting out the rest of the wounded younglings.

The last youngling found was one of Khar's siblings, the one who shook Garf's hand when seeing him for the first time. The little protoss was gravely wounded, and his eyes had a dim green glow.

"Oh no ..." Garf said, sensing that the baby's life was fading away fast.

The little one reached for Garf's hand one last time, barely able to grasp it. Then the youngling's eyes lost their light, his body going limp and turning into dust. Some of it fell on the snow while the rest remained on the ghost's arms. Garf's future brother-in-law … was gone.

Garf stared wide-eyed at the dust, and then at Xilnu, who was in the process of absorbing the dark archons' energy. The ghost showed his gritted teeth while glaring daggers at the hybrid.

Small pieces of the temple flew toward Garf and stuck to his body, as if he were a magnet. He equipped himself with his rifle and charged at Xilnu while screaming like a madman.

"Let's not be too hasty!" the Lady in Black said, stopping Garf in his tracks and lifting him with her telekinesis. "You're just throwing your life away by charging at the hybrid like that."

The ghost protested in gibberish while struggling in mid air. The pieces of the temple fell off his body.

"I've got beef with that creature too," Lady said. "Let _me_ handle it. You should keep the other terrans away. I don't want that thing getting free energy."

Garf pouted at being denied revenge, but he chose to listen to the mysterious protoss. As soon as he was put back on the ground, he nodded to Khar and left.

* * *

"Nandu-Xnora! Khartal-Solash!" Makatai yelled, trying to pull the two dark archons out of the hybrid's grasp. They pushed the prelate away, causing him to fall into a mound of snow.

"Our lives for the tribe!" the dark archons said in unison before their bodies exploded.

This dealt major damage to Xilnu, who had lost the opportunity to absorb the powerful protoss mergers. Yet he still had enough strength to push all of the dark templar away with another psionic shockwave.

"Hey! False xel'naga!" someone said.

Xilnu turned around to see the Lady in Black, whose capes fluttered in the wind while she stood there and held her fiery scythe with both of her hands.

"Who are you?" Xilnu asked, feeling an intense emanation of energy from within her. "How can you radiate so much power? Unless ..." He ducked to avoid another scythe thrown at him. The scythe came back like a boomerang and stabbed his back. "Argh! I should have known."

"I won't just sit back and watch as you kill these people, Xilnu," she said.

As the scythe dissolved, Xilnu read the mind of the Lady in Black and found out everything he wanted to know about her. "So, after manipulating everyone into doing what your plan requires, you pretend to care for them. Such a poser."

She scowled while tilting her head to the left. "Says the one whose creator is a poser."

"Oh, that he may be, but at least he has never developed feelings for any of his puppets."

She flinched after hearing that.

Xilnu laughed. "My creator does not care about what becomes of his servants. Unlike you. I cannot believe you once almost gave up your life to save a worthless piece of flesh that eventually realized it was better off dead. Such a fool you were, when you've only delayed the inevitable."

The Lady in Black scowled at him while she summoned a long, green warp blade out of the silver armor on each of her forearms. Without anything more to say to the hybrid, she lunged for him and pierced the flesh of his chest with both of her blades.

"I knew you would let your anger doom you," Xilnu said, smirking through his eyes. He used his hands to emit the purple beam, encasing her inside a sphere and lifting her above him. Her blades slipped out of his body, and his wounds healed themselves rapidly. "With your essence, I will become unstoppable!"

Behind Xilnu stood the five Moebius Corps ghosts, psionically charging up their rifles in order to snipe the head of the Lady in Black.

* * *

 **To be continued.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Crowning Moment of Ending**

The Lady in Black tried to struggle, but the purple sphere didn't allow her much room for movement. It was crushing her from all sides, denying her the use of any psionic power.

Xilnu knew that his energy would not be enough to finish the job, so he waited for the ghost agents under his mind control to deal large amounts of damage to his prisoner. After that, she would die if he'd merely start the process of absorbing her essence.

She slowly closed her eyes and curled her antennae around her body.

The blizzard had stopped, leaving only a mild wind to blow through the branches of the snowy conifer trees.

The ghosts almost finished charging up the shots, and their fingers were prepared to pull the triggers. Just then, something interrupted their concentration. A green flash of light zipped past them, then an intense pain caused them to black out.

Sensing the absence of his ghost underlings, Xilnu peeked over his left shoulder to see what was happening behind him. He saw Makatai, who stood among the five ghost corpses, his fiery warp blade held to the side while his cape fluttered in the wind.

Before the hybrid could think of a way to dispose of the prelate, he received a powerful shot to the forehead. He was blind for two seconds until his head regenerated his eyes and the missing tissues.

Garf smirked while holding his rifle aimed at Xilnu. To frustrate the hybrid even more, he fired an EMP shot too, draining some of Xilnu's energy.

"Pitiful creatures!" Xilnu said. "Why do you keep struggling? In the end, you will still be slaughtered."

Khar went next to Garf and charged up a green orb in her right hand. "This is for making your soldiers kill my mother." She launched the first psionic storm over Xilnu's head. "This," she said as she launched the second one, "is for almost getting my fiancé executed for a crime your subordinates committed." She threw a third one. "That one's for denying all of those unhatched younglings the chance to see the world." She began charging the fourth. "And this … this one's for causing the death of my little brother!" The last storm was added to the others, the lightning crackling between the trees.

Xilnu felt the storms like a billion needles that pierced through his skin and turned into daggers made of fire inside his body. He used part of his remaining energy to repel and shrink the storms to save himself. "Why do you insist on fighting when you've already lost?"

Lin stepped up. "This is for everyone who died in this war you've started." She fixed her eyes on Xilnu and made his skin boil until flames came out of him.

"This is for brainwashing my buddies!" Frank said, bringing his cyclone. His goggles went over his eyes as he locked the launchers on the hybrid. The vehicle shot five missiles, which exploded on Xilnu's back.

"You will all die!" Xilnu said as the flames stopped burning his body.

"Yes, but not when you want us to," Lin told the hybrid before using her psionic powers to stun him. This caused Xilnu to be unable to continue keeping the Lady in Black inside the spherical prison. The spectre looked at Makatai. "Deal with him however you see fit."

The prelate prepared to attack Xilnu, but first he waited until Tony arrived at the scene. "Tony, when I stab the hybrid and channel my void energies, you must fire at it."

"Wait a sec, Makatai!" Tony said while converting his tank into siege mode. "I don't wanna kill you with my tank!"

"The hybrid will regain its senses if we don't act soon. Do as I say! Have faith in me!" With that, Makatai dashed toward Xilnu, a trail of green light being left behind his warp blade. He delivered the stab to the hybrid's back, causing bright blue blood to come out of the creature's wound. "Fire!"

Tony hesitated for half a second, but then slammed the red button and turned his head to the left side as he closed his eyes. He heard a loud explosion and the cries of the hybrid. The tanker bit the bullet and opened his eyes to look at the monitor. He could see the severely wounded monster, the recovering Lady in Black, the spectre, the cyclone, the ghost, and the signifier, but Makatai was nowhere to be seen. "I've killed him!" He frowned and put his hands over his head. "I've killed him."

As the smell of burning cloth filled the tank, something sharp poked Tony's left shoulder. The tanker whipped his head around to see a four-fingered protoss hand. He grabbed and held it. "You scared me for a second there, buddy."

Makatai chuckled. Large chunks of his cape had been burned, and his silver armor was mostly covered in soot, but he did not suffer any serious injuries.

Outside, the Lady in Black walked up to Xilnu, who held his arms wrapped around his chest to stop the bleeding of his wounds. She said to him, "Now it's _your_ turn to experience the graviton prison." She put her hands in front and emitted a green beam of light, which then formed a sphere around the hybrid.

Xilnu was lifted toward the sky, way above the tips of the tallest trees. As the sphere began to crush him from all sides, he struggled. "Once more you are only delaying the inevitable. The master will rid this world of every last miserable being, and rebuild with a clean slate. You will all be forgotten."

"You know what?" the Lady in Black said while tilting her head to the right. "Let's just get this over with." She released the hybrid from the graviton prison and launched herself at him.

Xilnu was so weakened that he could not do anything to stop his fall.

The Lady in Black summoned her two warp blades and sliced the hybrid in the air, separating his legs from his body. Then she dashed back and used the blades to separate the abdomen from the chest of the creature. During her third dash, she sliced the hybrid's neck, separating the head from the chest.

The butchered hybrid landed in the forest, in an area where there was no protoss or terran in sight. He hoped that the trees, with their dense, snow-coated branches, would hide him from her view long enough for his regeneration to reconnect the pieces of his body. If only his master were there … The master would put him back together in an instant. But Xilnu was alone. He was too weak to call to his puppets for aid. Too weak to speed up his recovery. Too weak to emit even a thin shield to guard himself until his body would be made whole again.

A green light came crashing down through the branches. It landed heavily on the ground, leaving a deep hole in the snow. It was the Lady in Black, with her long, fiery warp blades.

Xilnu stared at her with his wide blue eyes. His head began to shake.

"Do not worry, Xilnu," she said, making her warp blades fade away. "Ouros' champion will free your master from suffering. Just like I'm about to do to you."

In his last moments, the hybrid saw the Lady in Black summon her blazing scythe. After she swung it at his head, there was only darkness.

* * *

Makatai and one hundred centurions went to search for the Lady in Black and Xilnu through the forest. They found her as she was pulling her bandanna back over her chin.

"Where is the hybrid?" the prelate asked her.

"You will no longer have to worry about it," she said, twirling her right antenna around her fingers.

"Where is the body?"

"I have disposed of it. Now everything can get back to normal here."

Makatai squinted his eyes at her. "I hope that what you say is true."

* * *

In the evening, the protoss and the terrans gathered inside and around the Frigate to spend some time with each other and celebrate their victory.

Tony and Brian sat with Makatai at a round table in the cafeteria. The prelate's formerly battered outfit had been made good as new by his people.

Tony saw an SCV whose pilot was old and had gray, shoulder-length hair and a mustache. "Hey, Pops! Bring some champagne for the three of us!"

"I didn't know the 'toss can drink," Pops said.

"We can drink through our skin," Makatai told him, "but I do not know what the point of this is, since I will not be able to taste it."

"You'll see," Brian said, grinning.

At the counter, Connor, Frank, and the latter's three marine friends sat to have some beer. They all remained equipped so that they could step in if some new disaster struck. Frank held two glasses at the same time. With the one in his right hand, he helped the diamondback pilot drink.

"Thank you," Connor said. "Feels nice to not have to drink like a bird after such a long time ..."

"No problem," Frank said.

"Magellan will eventually build a pair of cybernetic arms for me, so you won't have to waste your time like this."

Frank patted the diamondback pilot on the back. "It's okay; I don't mind doing this for you."

Connor smiled at the cyclone pilot, who smiled back at him.

At another round table sat Khar, Garf, and Khor'kai. The latter held Khar's two remaining siblings in his arms. On the table, there was a plate out of which the ghost took and ate a ham sandwich. Khar was holding her fingers in a cup of warm tea again.

Two empty wine glasses flew off a table and hit Garf in the back, shattering into pieces. "Dam' it!" He calmed down once Khar rubbed his back with her hand.

Lin and Tyrell played at two of the cafeteria's four arcade cabinets.

"Ha! I beat your high score!" she said while pointing at the screen in front of her.

"Let's go for round two!" he said.

"Ready when you are!"

The marauder nodded and then put his right hand's middle finger over the start button. "Go!"

At a table near a corner of the room, the goliath pilot played poker with Harold and a few other SCV pilots. After everyone put their five cards down, Harold looked at the goliath pilot and said, "Damn it, Rob! This is the third time in a row!"

Rob grinned at him and took the pot.

Jack and Helga were at another table, smooching with each other, oblivious to the world around them.

The viking pilot was boasting about his flight adventures to three medic ladies at a nearby table. They seemed impressed.

Pops arrived with the champagne and poured it into the three elegant champagne glasses at the table where Tony, Brian, and Makatai sat. "Would you like anything else, gentlemen?"

"Nah, it's fine," Tony said. "Thanks, Pops!"

"You're welcome. Now to serve the hellions. Those guys sure love whiskey!"

"Pour it! Pour it!" Brian said to Makatai.

The prelate took the glass and poured the champagne onto the back of his right hand. The liquid was absorbed into his skin. Ten seconds later, his eyes widened. "This sensation … It is amazing! I feel like I am levitating!"

Brian chuckled. "Told ya it's good stuff!"

A centurion darted into the cafeteria. "Prelate! There is a bright green light coming from a nearby location in the forest!"

* * *

The trees started to shake as the light grew in intensity. A pair of enormous wings made of green fire grew from within the forest, standing tall and visible all the way to the nexus.

Smiley and the other probes stopped mining and stared at the unusual light show.

Makatai, Tony, Khar, Khor'kai, Garf, and a few other terrans and protoss gathered in front of the Frigate's right side and watched as the wings came down and spread themselves out.

The owner of the wings became known. It was a creature of green flame, with an elongated head which had a pair of horns, four bright white eyes – two on each side – and a snout full of short tentacles. Its body was stout, with thick, long tentacles coming from the sides of its torso and short tail. The being looked in the direction of the Frigate. It slowly flapped its majestic wings, whose span reached over the entire settlement, as well as way past the closest mountain.

"It is the monster Aru and I saw in the forest!" Khor'kai said, trembling in fear.

Khar noticed that the being of light held something with the tentacles of its tail. "It is carrying a wreath for the fallen!" She smiled through her eyes at the giant flier and held hands with Garf.

"What is this creature?" Makatai asked, staring in awe at the sheer size of it.

Tony smiled at the giant being. "Looks like you guys have met an old friend of ours."

When the green, fiery creature flew toward the starry sky and absorbed the terrazine from the Forbidden Temple, Smiley dropped the clump of minerals he had collected. After the mysterious being disappeared among the stars, the old probe slanted his lenses downward and began to whimper. The other probes gave him a group hug.

* * *

Morning came, and the terrans were preparing to "set sail". Tony and Makatai sat on the edge of the rocky platform, where the trial had taken place.

"Well, we've gathered all of the remaining rogues," Tony said to the prelate. "We could only save the marines, but hey, at least we've got a slightly bigger army now. Sadly, we ran out of jorium, so we'll have to go search for some more to make the rest of the brainwashed people snap out of their confusion."

"May luck be with you wherever you go, Tony," Makatai said. He looked at the settlement, whose houses displayed damage from the banshee attacks. "It will be difficult for me to lead my people now that all three of my advisers are gone. But in time, I shall improve my skills, and a new council may form. I have learned much from you terrans. I thank you all for your aid."

Tony got up and stretched out. "Don't mention it. If you guys need any more help later on, just give us a call. We'll fly here as soon as possible." He looked at the bright, warm sun. "Hey, it's almost time for liftoff. I better go see who stays and who comes along."

* * *

Khar and Garf stood before Tony and the other terrans.

"So, Garf, you're staying here, huh?" Tony said.

The ghost nodded. "Mhm."

"We must rebuild the Temple of Young and take care of the younglings," Khar said. "For some of them, we will be the only family they have."

"Then take care of yourselves. My SceeVee boys will leave Garf some boxes of lab-grown burgers, ham, and bread. We'll drop by every few months and bring more."

"Thanks," Garf said.

Ray, now capable of independent flight, showed up and landed next to the ghost. "Hello there, UED wimp!"

Garf smirked and kicked the raven. "Tee hee!"

"I just came to say that I will be going with the terrans. Sorry that I won't be around to help you dig for roots anymore."

The ghost frowned.

Ray lowered his fins. "Maybe you can train an observer to help you out. I really want to join Magellan and help him study things on the planet where we will settle. Our people will be planetary system neighbors with you guys, so at least that is good news."

For the first time, Garf did something that Ray never thought would happen in a million years. He put his arms over the corner of the aircraft's right triangular eye and hugged it.

"Do not be sad," the raven said. "When we will come visit, Magellan and I will bake you a cake."

Garf noticed that some liquid was dripping from under Ray's eyes. "Aww! Dun' cry!"

Ray spread his fins out and vibrated them. "That is just antifreeze solution. Ravens cannot cry, stupid!"

The ghost chuckled and slapped the raven's plating twice before stepping away and smiling.

"Take care of yourself, you crazy human!" Ray said. He lifted off and flew back inside the Frigate.

* * *

Smiley stood behind a mineral patch while the other probes continued to mine.

Tony approached him. "Hey, little buddy! What's the matter?"

Smiley looked at the ground. "Nyo ..."

"Are the others being mean to you or something?"

The probe turned his body to the left then to the right.

"Then why are you so sad?"

Smiley looked at the sky. "Nya! Nyaaa!"

"It's because he left again, huh?" Tony said. "Anyway, we're about to take off. Do ya wanna stay here and mine with the other probes, or do ya wanna stick with us?"

Without hesitation, Smiley jumped into the tanker's arms. "Nyu."

Tony smiled. "Okay then. I'll take you to your comfy little basket, and I'll read you a new bedtime story."

"Ya!"

* * *

The Frigate took off while everyone on the snowy ground waved at it. As the colossal, peculiar spaceship departed from Cylas, the members of the Atum tribe had a newfound hope that they could rebuild their settlement and continue to flourish on the planet they called home.

 **THE END**


End file.
